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TRANSLATION 

OF 
v 

OVID'S FASTI 

INTO 

ENGLISH PROSE,. 

miitft Notes, 

BY 

WILLIAM THYNNE. 



PART I. 

CONTAINING THE FIRST THREE BOOKS. 

( 



DUBLIN : 

JOHN CUMMING, 16, LOWER ORMOND QUAY. 



1833. 






J. D. Scott and Co. Printers. 
£6, Great Strand-street. 



PREFACE. 



When I had undertaken to prepare an edition 
of Ovid's Fasti, my publisher thought that it 
would be imperfect without a translation of the 
text. I must own that I do not think that many 
difficulties can arise in the study of the original 
to be removed by translation. The ordinary 
distich of elegiac verse closes the sentiment, 
and leaves little room for complicated struc- 
tures. The work abounds, it is true, in diffi- 
culties ; but these are, for the most part, 
difficulties which can be met onlv by comment. 
If, however, any one conceives that he can 
derive advantage from a translation, it is at his 
service. 



IV PREFACE. 

To wander wide of the structure of mj text, 
in order to uphold the spirit, was no part of 
my task. To uphold the spirit of poetry in 
prose, and to excite my reader's interest in the 
theology of pagan Rome appeared too quixotic 
an enterprise : and I have contented myself 
A T ith the more sober aim of utility. 

Literal translations are usually prepared with 
a view of fostering indolence ; and even al- 
though the translator, which is notoften the case, 
be a much better scholar than those whom he 
affects to instruct, he seldom casts about how 
he may w T in his reader to the founts of know- 
ledge. But there is one circumstance in which 
he could at once improve the air of the trans- 
lation, and, without greatly alarming the reader, 
his mind too — If he would carefully note the 
ancient idiom, by declining from it in his 
version. 

There are indeed few Latin idioms which are 
not sometimes adopted by our most chaste 
writers ; and it is only in their constant recur- 



PREFACE. V 

rence that we detect the stiffness of the ver- 
sion : while the strictness of our translation of 
the Bible has rendered many Greek and Oriental 
idioms so familiar to our language, that it is 
only by the discerning reader that they are 
perceived to be idioms at all. 

I have attached several notes : but as they 
consist, with the exception of some few after- 
thoughts, of matter which appeared below the 
dignity of a commentary, I fear to recommend 
them to the notice of the scholar. 

When I heard that Mr. Butt had undertaken 
a Translation of the Fasti, I hoped that he 
would render that part of my engagement un- 
necessary. He was for many years my pupil ; 
and I had a full opportunity of appreciating 
those powers which, with discretion, cannot 
fail of raising him to the highest rank to 
which abilities can be expected to raise their 
possessor in the profession to which he pro- 
poses to devote himself. When I had per- 
ceived, however, from an inspection of some 



VI PREFACE. 

sheets of his work which he submitted to me, 
that he followed no chosen text, and, perhaps, 
least of all that which was the principal basis 
of mine, the text of Krebs ; I conceived that 
his translation could only perplex those for 
whom a translation is necessary ; and was de- 
cided hastily to produce the present work. 



OVID'S FASTI. 

BOOK I, 



I shall sing of the days of observance, as dis- 
tributed in order through the Latian year, with the 
reasons ; and of the sinking of the heavenly bodies 
below the earth, and their rising. Greet, O Csesar 
Germanicus,* this composition with kind looks, and 
guide the course of a timid bark : and not spurning 
the honours of my attentions as trivial, favour me 
during this my task, which is dedicated lo there, an 
offering to yourself ! You will here retrace the holy 
rites picked from out the heap of the olden annals? 
and by what service each day has deserved to be 
marked out : there you will also find the festivals 
peculiar to your house ; and shall have often to read 
of your father, often of your grandfather; and 10 

* ver. 3. Drusus Nero, stepson of Augustus, having died in 
his Germanic expedition, the Senate, besides other honours, con 
ferred the title of Germanicus upon him and his descendants. 
It is to his son, a distinguished scholar, and an amiable man, 
that Ovid dedicates his work. Augustus on adopting his stepson, 
Tiberius Nero, required of him to adopt this his nephew, although 
Tiberius had a son of his own, named Drusus. Germanicus, 
from his superior age, merits, and popularity, was thought to cast 
a shade over his adoptive brother, and to excite the jealousy of 
Tiberius, by whose machinations, and the poison of Piso, it was 
supposed to be that Germanicus died at an early age. His son 
Caligula, the third Germanicus, came to the Roman thronp, 
where he disappointed all the expectations of him to which his 
father's merits had given rise. 



2 ovir/s fasti, i. 26. 

whatever honours they obtain, marking the variegated 
calendar; you also shall obtain, with your brother 
Drusus.* Let others sing of Csesar's deeds in arms, we 
shall sing of his sacred institutions, and whatever 
days he has added to our holy religion. Favour 
me while I attempt to go through the subject of 
your family's praise, and from my heart dash out 
its anxious fears. Lend yourself gentle to me, — 
you will have thus communicated vigour to my 
verses : my genius or rises or sinks with your looks. 
A work is attempted which is about to undergo the 
criticism of a prince and a scholar, as though it 
20 were sent to be read by the Clarian Apollo. For 
we have felt what is the eloquence of those polished 
lips, as he waged the wordy war of litigation for 
his trembling clients:f and we know, when the rush 
of inspiration has borne him into our own depart- 
ment of poetry, how deep flows the tide of your 
talents.^ If it be allowable and right to ask, a poet 
guide a poet's reins, that under your onduct the 
whole year may proceed favourably. § 

When the founder of the city was regulating the 



* 12. It was a great honour to be mentioned in the Fasti, or pub- 
lic annals: and sometimes names were erased from them for 
punishment and degradation. 

1 22. Every young man of any pretensions to ability pleaded for 
his friends ; and Germanicus is said to have distinguished himself 
in this way. 

X 24. Germanicus was a poet, and his poetical version of Aratus' 
Phenomena is extant. He also wrote some Greek plays. 

§ 26. This may be more freely rendered — ' That under your 
command the whole year's campaign may prove victorious* — 
Auspex and felix carrying a military allusion, and Ovid likening 
his labours to a military service. The allusion of annus lies in 
a play upon its literal signification, of time spent in service, 
and its secondary one, as being the subject of description. 



ovid's fasti, i. 46. 3 

calendar, he appointed that there should be, in his 
year, twice five months. The truth is, Romulus, 
you were more familiar with arms than the stars, 
and had more concern to subdue your borderers. 30 
And yet, Csesar, there is a consideration to have in- 
fluenced him, and he has wherewith to defend his 
departure from usage — what interval is sufficient, 
ere the infant should issue from his mother's womb, 
that period he resolved should be in his year. During 
as many months after her husband's death, the 
widow supports in her house the emblems of her 
sorrow. This, then, the thoughtfulnesss of the 
trabea-clad Quirinus regarded, when he was en- 
gaged in giving to his uninformed clans the constitu- 
tion of the civil year. The first month was that of 
Mars, and the second of Venus : she was the foun- 
der of his house, his own father he.* The third 40 
month was named from the elders ; the fourth from 
the name of the juniors ; and the crowd which fol- 
lows were distinguished by their order. But Numa 
overlooks neither Janus nor the shades of the dead, 
and he has attached two to the former months. f 

That you should not, however, be ignorant of the 
distinctions of different days : every day-star has 
not the same routine of duties. That day shall be 
nefastus, during which certain three words are 

* 40. Venus was the mother of JEneas, and thus the origin of 
Romulus' house, while Mars was his immediate father. 

t44. ' March was named from Mars; April from Aphrodite or 
Venus; May and June from the Majores and Juvenes, into 
which the people were divided by Servius ; Quintilis, the old 
name of July, Sextilis, the old name of August, September, 
October, &c, from their order reckoned from March ; January 
from Janus ; and February from the februa offered in it to the 
manes. 



4 ovid's fasti, i, 65. 

not named ; that fastus on which it shall be al- 
lowed people to proceed by law. And that you 
should not imagine that its distinction endures 
through the whole day, that which shall presently 

50 be fastus, was at his commencement ne fastus ; for 
soon as the victims have been given to the god, you 
may express any word, and the worshipful praetor 
has his forms unobstructed.* There is also the day 
on which it is permitted by law to enclose the 
people in polling-booths ;t and that which ever 
recurs on the ninth day. J Juno's guardianship claims 
for itself the Ausonian calends ; on the ides a white 
lamb somewhat grown falls to Jove ; the patronage 
of the nones is destitute of a divinity. After each of 
these, see that it does not escape you, the next day 
shall be unlucky. The omen is from the result, 
since on these days Rome sustained melancholy 

60 defeats in adverse battle. § These circumstances, at- 
tached to the whole calendar, shall have been said 
by me once for all, that I be not compelled to break 
the order of my subject. 

Lo ! Germanicus, Janus announces to you a 
happy year, and is here the first in my verse. O 

*50. Some days were court days ; some law holidays ; and 
some intercisi, or, part-holidays, in the middle of which the 
praetor sat, but not in the morning or evening. 

f53. Some days were marked out as comitiales, or fit days to 
hold meetings of the people to pass laws or elect magistrates. 
In Ovid's time the people were polled in the Septa Julia, built 
by Agrippa, and named in honour of the imperial house. 

+ 54. The whole year was distributed into nundines, or sets of 
eight days, as with us into weeks of seven. 

§60. The days after the Calends Nones and Ides were atri, 
that is, no divine sendees took place upon them : not because, 
as Ovid would seem to say, the Romans suffered defeat upon 
them, but because they suffered defeat after sacrificing upon them, 
and inferred4hat sacrifices were not acceptable on those days. 



ovid's fasti, i. 83. 5 

doubleheaded Janus, commencement of the stilly- 
gliding year, who alone of the gods above see 
your back, favourably attend our leaders,* by whose 
toils the fertile earth enjoys peaceful repose, the 
sea repose : favourably attend both on your senators 
and on the community of Quirinus, and with your 
approbation unbolt the glistening temples. 70 

A happy day now dawns : forward the holy 
aspirations both with tongues and spirits; now, on a 
blessed day, blessed words are to be uttered. Be 
our ears relieved from litigation, and let all in- 
temperate altercation be straightway removed : post- 
pone, malignant tongue, your task. See you not, 
how the heavens blaze with scented flames, and 
crackles upon kindled hearth Cilician spikenard? 
The flame with its brightness reverberates on the 
gold of the temples, and scatters its quivering beam 
on the sacred ceilings. With pure dresses they go 
to the Tarpeian heights, and the very multitude 
wears the colour harmonizing with the gay occasion. 80 
And now precede new fasces, new purple glistens 
behind, and the ornamented chairs of ivory bear 
new burthens. Steers unacquainted with the far- 

*67. Duces, the same as imperator es, properly military com- 
manders. This title was made permanent to Augustus, who is 
thus pre-eminently entitled imperator, and thus we call him and 
his descendants emperors. Duces the imperial house, as Livy 
uses reges for the imperial family of Tarquin. Strictly speak- 
ing, the title of imperator only denotes the prince in his military 
capacity : and Tiberius was wont to say that he was the dominus 
of his slaves, the imperator of his soldiers, and the princeps of 
his people. The last was the title by which he and Augustus 
wished their civil power to be denoted. Thus the text includes 
the three orders of the duces, or imperial house, the patricians, 
and the populus, or commons, which included the equites and 
plebs. 

b3 



6 ovid's fasti, i. 106. 

mer's task, which Faliscan herbage fed upon its- 
plains, submit their necks to the stroke. Jupiter, 
as he looks from his height over the whole globe, 
has nothing to see which is not Rome's. Hail, joyous 
day ! and ever return better and better, worthy to 
be honoured by a people who lord the world ! 

But what divinity shall I describe you to be, 
doubleshaped Janus ? For Greece has no god like 

90 to you.* Tell, at the same time, the reason, why 
you alone, of the dwellers in the sky, see both what 
is at your back and what is before. While I was 
revolving thus in my mind, with tablet in hand, the 
house seemed brighter than before it was : then 
holy Janus, wondrous with his two-headed form, 
suddenly presented to my sight his double features. 
I was confounded, and felt my hair to stand on end 
with awe, and my breast was frozen with a sudden 
chill. Holding in his right hand a staff, and a 
key in his left, he uttered these sounds to me, from 

100 his front mouth. 

" Laying aside your apprehensions, poet who re- 
cord the days, learn what you ask, and catch with 
all your mind my words. Ma the ancients, for I 
am an old thing, called Chaos. See you of how 
remote a period I sing the occurrences. This light- 
some air, and the three elements which are besides, f 
fire, water, earth, were all one undistinguished 
heap. Soon as this pile parted by the dissension 

* 90. The Romans, whenever they could, were fain to trace 
their mythology from Greece, which has produced inextricable 
confusion in the Roman system. 

t 105. The ancients usually reckoned four elements — fire, air, 
earth, and water ; which were originally commingled in chaos, 
when ' the earth was without form, and void ; and darkness was 



ovid's fasti, i. 129. 7 

of its materials, and resolving, withdrew into new 
departments, fire soared aloft, the nearer situation 
received the air, the earth and fretful sea sank to a 
middle position. Then I, who had been a globe, HO 
and bulk without feature, passed into a shape and 
limbs becoming a god. Even at this day, a slight 
character of my former indistinctness of outline, 
what is before me, and what behind me, appear the 
same. 

" Hear what is the second reason of the shape, 
about which you inquire, that you may at the same 
time learn this and my province. Whatever you any 
where see, heaven, sea, mist,* lands, all have been 
pent up and are opened by my hand. With me 
alone rests the charge of the vasty universe, and 
the province of revolving the hinge is wholly mine. 120 
When it has pleased my fancy to discharge peace from 
my tranquil roof, she freely walks the unobstructed 
ways. The whole globe shall be thrown into con- 
fusion in deadly bloodshed, unless bolts of steel 
confine the imprisoned wars. I sit before heaven's 
portals with the gentle Hours, and Jove himself 
passes and repasses at my wardship. I am thence 
named Janus : to whom when the priest offers on 
my altar the cake of bread ? and flour mixed with 
salt, you will smile at the names. For at times I, 
one and the same person, am entitled Patulcius, at 

upon the face of the deep.' Janus was the Chaos, or rather the 
brooding spirit of it. Like other gods, he is confounded with his 
department, or, at least, supposed to have some resemblance 
to it. 

* 117. Xubila, mist, used for air, the region of mist and clouds. 
1 126. Officio meo, dum ego officium facio, I waiting as janitor. 



8 ovid's fasti, i. 154. 

130 times Clusius, by the lips of my worshipper.* To 
account for which, that uneducated antiquity de- 
signed by the several names to denote my contrary 
offices. My power has been related. Now learn 
the cause of my shape : yet this you already see in 
some degree at least. Every gate has, on this side 
and that, two faces, one of which looks out upon 
the public, the other in upon the household : and as 
your gate-keeper, seated at the entrance of the first 
part of the house, sees the outgoings and incom- 

140 ings ; so I, doorkeeper of the court of heaven, see be- 
fore me the eastern regions and the western together. 
You see the faces of Hecate turned toward three quar- 
ters, that she may watch the three ways: I, likewise, 
that I may not waste time in turning round my 
neck, can take two views without moving my per- 
son." 

He had done ; and with his looks owned that 
he would not be churlish to me, if I chose to inquire 
further. I took spirit, and undaunted I returned 
thanks to the god, and looking on the ground, I 
spoke a few words : — 

" Say, pray, why the new year begins in winter, f 

150 which had better been begun in spring ? Then all 
things flower, then is the youthful time of the year, 
and the young bud swells from the teeming vine 

* 130. It was usual to repeat all the names of a divinity in prayers 
to him, lest his favourite one should be omitted. Among Janus 's 
titles were Patulcius or Opener, and Clusius or Shutter. 

t 149. The Bruma or winter solstice/when the sun begins to re- 
turn toward our hemisphere, and the days to lengthen, occurs with 
us on the 20th December, and with Julius Cesar about the 24th, 
and probably, when the Roman year was first appointed to com- 
mence on January 1st, this solstice took place on that day. 



ovid's fasti, i. 172. 9 

shoot, and the tree is enwrapped by the newly de- 
veloped foliage, and the herbage finds its way to 
the surface of the soil, and the birds with their har- 
mony sweeten the warming air, and the cattle dis- 
port and frolic in the meads. Then is the sunshine 
grateful, and the stranger swallow comes forward, 
and pecks his mud work at the bottom of a lofty 
beam. Then the land suffers culture, and is 
renewed by the plough. This should have been in 
reason named the youthful time of the year." \qq 

I had inquired at full length ; he, not detaining 
at any length, threw his answer thus into two 
verses : — 

" The winter solstice is the commencing day of 
the new, and last of the old sun : Phoebus and the 
year take the same beginning." 

After this I was wondering why the first day 
should not be exempt from litigation.* " Hear the 
reason," says Janus. 

" I have assigned the birth-day of the year to the 
transaction of business, that from the precedent the 
whole year may be not inactive. Every one, for the 
same reason, lightly essays his calling, by doing a 
little in it, and does no more than merely give an 
evidence of his ordinary occupations." 170 

Soon I : — " why, although I appease the godship 
of others, do I, O Janus, present incense and wine 
to you first ?"f 

*165. But, although January 1st was notanefastus dies, yet the 
pleaders were not expected to engage in any serious cause, but 
only to skirmish for form and omen's sake. 

t 172. The first prayers were always given to Janus, by way of 
bespeaking a good word from him with the other gods. *He thus 
came to be called Matutinus. 



10 ovid's fasti, i. 192. 

" That by me, who guard the doors, you may have" 
says he, " a passage forward to whatever gods I will.** 

" But why are gladsome vows uttered on your 
calends, and do we give and receive good wishes 
in return ?" 

Then the god, resting on the staff which his right 
hand bore, says : — 

" Presumptions of the future are used to attend the 
commencement. You turn your fearful ears to the 
first sounds ; and the augur takes his auspices from 
180 the bird first seen. The temples lie open, and the 
ears of the gods: and no tongue fashions idle 
prayers, and sayings have weight." 

He had ended in few words : and I made no long 
silence, but followed with my words close on the 
last of his. 

" What means the present of the date, I said, and 
the shrivelled fig, and the white honey in its snow- 
coloured jar?"* 

" Omen, says he, is the motive, that that sweet- 
ness may attend one's affairs, and that the year 
may go on through its course sweet as when that 
course began." 

" I see why sweets are given : add the meaning of 
the small coin, that no detail of your festival may 
190 be imperfect on my mind." 

He smiled, and "O," said he, "how little do you 
know of your own times, when you think that honey is 
sweeter than the receipt of a little cash ! I hardly 

* 186. Presents of sweet things were made on n£w year's day, 
by way of omen that the whole year may be sweet and pleasant. 
Among these sweets was a little money, one of the sweetest of 
sweet things. 



ovid's fasti, i. 214. 11 

knew any one, even when Saturn reigned, to whose 
heart gain was not sweet. With time progressed the 
love of acquiring, which is now at its height. It 
scarcely has further room to advance. Wealth is 
now an object of more regard than in the years of 
olden time, while the community was poor, w T hile 
Rome was new, while a scanty cottage contained 
the Mars-begotten Quirinus, and the sedge of the river 
furnished a scanty couch. A whole Jupiter hardly 200 
stood in his narrow temple, and in the right arm of 
Jove was a thunderbolt of earthenware. They 
were used to adorn the Capitolium with branches, 
as now with jewels ; and the senator used himself 
to tend his own sheep ; and it was no shame to 
have taken a quiet nap in straw, and to have pil- 
lowed the head with hay. The consul gave laws to 
the people, when he had just left the plough,*and a 
light vessel of silver was a ground of accusation. 
But after the Fortune of this placet lifted her head, 
and Rome reached with her top high as the gods 
supreme, both riches and their mad desire in- 210 
creased, and it is when men possess most they desire 
more. They live in a constant stuggleto obtain that 
they may lavish, to re-obtain what they have lavished : 
and the very reciprocations prove nurture to the 

* 207. Agriculture was the most respectable pursuit of an ancient 
Roman ; who would be for ever disgraced by commerce. Some 
patricians, however, were secretly engaged in commercial specu- 
lations. 

1 209. -FortuwaRomaB, for Rome itself, or perhaps for the patron 
divinity of Rome, whose name was kept a profound secret lest she 
should be wheedled away by the arts of some enemy, if it should 
be known. One man was struck dead by heaven for breathing 
it : moderns are not afraid to tell us that it was Valentia j but I 
do not know who had the boldness to tell them. 



12 ovid's fasti, i. 237. 

vices. So by those whose chest has swollen with 
the suffusion of water, the more water is drunk the 
more it is thirsted for. Value now is valued : pos- 
sessions confer honours, possessions friends : the 
poor man every where grovels. But you ask, how 
the omen of the small coin is serviceable, and why 

220 old brass is welcome to our hands. In former times 
they gave brass money : at present there is better 
omen in gold, and the ancient coinage has left the 
field to the new. Us also, although we think 
pretty well of our old temples, gilded ones delight : 
that dignity becomes a god. We praise the ancients, 
but we go with the present current. However, each 
custom deserves equally to be respected." 

He had ended his instructions ; then thus again, 
in gentle tone, as before, I address the staff-bearing 
god : — " Many points, I own, I have learned ; but 
why is the form of a ship one of those which are 
stamped upon the brass piece, and the other double- 

230 headed?" 

" You might," said he, " recognise me in the double 
form, had not many a long day worn away the 
workmanship.* The reason of the vessel remains to 
be told. The bill-bearing god, having previously 
wandered through the globe, came in a bark into 
the Tuscan river. I remember the reception of 
Saturn in this land : he had been expelled by Jove 
from the empire of heaven. Thence the name of 
Saturnian long attached itself to this nation : the 



* 232 On the ancient stips there was stamped the figure of a 
ship, as well as of a double-faced head : but the coin was so old 
that the resemblance in the features of the latter to the statue of 
Janus could scarcely be traced. 



ovid's fasti, i. 258. 13 

country was also named Latium, from the conceal- 
ment of the god. But pious posterity retained the 
ship on the brass piece, recording the arrival of the 
visiting deity. I myself inhabited the soil, whose 240 
left verge the very placid wave of the sandy Tiber 
sweeps along. Here, where Rome at present stands, 
there flourished an ancient wood, and a place so 
great was a pasture for a few oxen. My com- 
manding position was the hill which this age in 
respect calls by my name, and entitles the Janicu- 
lum.* I was in the possession of royal power in 
those days when the earth was capable of sustaining 
gods, and divinities were commingled with the 
situations occupied by mankind. No deed of blood 
had yet scared away Justice, — she was the last of 
the gods who left the earth, — and the very respect 25Q 
for public opinion, without compulsion, ruled the 
community, instead of the terrors of the law; and 
there was no difficulty to render justice among a 
just people. I had no concern with war, I super- 
intended peace and door-posts:" — and showing a 
key, "these are the arms," says he, "which I bear." 

The God had closed his lips : then thus I open 
mine, my words enticing forth those of the God : — 

" When there are so many januses,f why do you 
stand consecrated in one alone, here where you 
possess a temple conjoined to two forums V* 

* 246. Janus dwelt on the Janiculum at the Etrurian side of 
iheTiber, and Saturn at the LaCian side on the Capitolium, where he 
is thought to have founded an ancient town named Saturnia. The 
ancient Italians, or at least their chieftains, dwelled on heights : 
and even in Rome the citizens of rank lived on the hills, and are 
always said descendere, when they mingled with the crowd. 

t 257. Covered passages were named jani, but only one of all 
these was a temple tothegod, although he had other temples not 

C 



14 ovid's fasti, i. 278. 

With his hand stroking his beard, which hung down 
to his breast, forthwith he related the war of (Eba- 
260 lian Titus; and how the giddy ward, taken with 
the Sabine armlets, conducted Tatius to the ap- 
proach of the summit of the Arx. 

" From that," said he, " there was, as there still 
is, the steep descent into the vallies and forums, 
through which ye go down. And he had just 
reached the gate, whose resisting bolts the treache- 
rous Juno had withdrawn : when avoiding, through 
respect, to raise conflict with so high a divinity, I 
myself, crafty as I was, exerted a task of my own 
calling : and I opened the fountain's gush, in which 
sort of aid I have power, and jetted out a sudden 
270 stream. Previously, however, I had mixed sulphur 
with the hot current, that the boiling water should 
obstruct the progress of Tatius. And when the ad- 
vantage of this had been appreciated in the repulse 
of the Sabines, and the form which it had was restored 
to the place unimpaired, an altar was erected to me, 
conjoined to a small chapelry. This consumes in 
its flames flour with a cake of peculiar form." 

" But why are you shut in during peace ; and when 
war is stirred up, thrown open ?" Without any 
delay, the cause of the circumstance inquired after 
was returned to me : — 

jani. This consecrated j anus was the temple indicative of war 
and peace, and contained a statue of the god, five cubits high — 
not five feet, as the herd of commentators, including myself, re- 
peat one after another. It stood between the Forum Romanum 
and Forum Caesaris. Duillius built a temple to Janus in the 
forum olitorium, or herb-market, which does not appear to have 
any connection with a second forum, so as to come under the 
description of the text : and it is certain that the temple at the 
head of the Roman forum was a janus. 



ovid's fasti, i. 300. 15 

"In order that a return may lie open to the people 
after having' gone forth to war, my whole gate lies 
open with its bolt removed. In peace I close 280 
my doors, that they may no where depart : and 
under the Cesarean house long time shall I be 
shut in." 

He spoke : and raising his eyes, which took oppo- 
site views, he beheld whatever was on the entire 
globe. There was peace ; and the Rhine, the sub- 
ject of your triumph, Germanicus, had yielded up 
to you her humbled waters. O Janus, make peace 
everlasting and the servants of peace ; and provide 
that the institutor may not forsake his own under- 
taking. 

But, what it was in my power to learn from the 
Fasti themselves, the senate consecrated two tem- 
ples upon this day : the island, which the stream 290 
compresses by its parted waters, received the son 
of Phoebus and of the nymph Coronis. Jupiter is 
in part-possession ; one place received them both, 
and the temple of his grandson is conjoint with the 
mighty grand sire.* 

What forbids to mention also the stars, how each 
both rises and sets ? that was a part of my engage- 
ment. Happy spirits, who first had the concern to 
learn these matters, and ascend into the mansions 
on high ! It is worthy of belief that they put forth 
their heads both above the corroding cares and the 
habitations of man : nor lust and wine enfeebled their 300 

* 294. Besides the temples of uEsculapius and Jupiter, the 
Insula contained also a temple of Faunus, consecrated in the 
same year as Jupiter's, and apparently conjoined into one struc- 
ture with it. 



16 OVID r S FASTI. I. 319. 

exalted minds, or the obliging labours of the Forum,* 
or the toils of warfare : nor did ^iddv ambition, and 
fame overspread with a false glare, or the craving Gf 
great riches, disquiet them. They applied their eyes 
to the stars far remote from earthyf and subjected to 
their powerful minds the regions of sether. This is 
the way to seek heaven ; not that Olympus should 
support Ossa, and Pelion's peak reach the stars 
on high. % Under the guidance of these we also shall 
plan out the skies, and set down at the fixed con- 
310 stellations their days. 

When, then, the third night shall be close upon 
the approaching nones, and the earth shall grow 
damp, sprinkled with the dews of heaven ; in vain will 
the claws of the eight-legged Crab be sought out : 
sinking he will have gone beneath the western wave. 

Should the nones be just come, showers sent 
from dark clouds shall give intimations,, as the lyre 
rises. 

Add four days to the nones, going on in order — 
Janus will be to be atoned to on the day of the ago- 
nalia. You may be the source of the name, aproned 
assistant, by whose blow the victim fails to the gods 

* 302. Flippant and shallow scholars may think that officium 
fori is sufficiently rendered by * professional labours :' but orn- 
cium implies kindness, and applies in this case because the ancient 
Romans did not plead for hire and profession, but for friendship 
and kindness. 

f 305. The text makes a transposition of government, saying 
that *■ people apply stars to their eyes/ instead of saying, that 
*they apply their eyes to the stars.' Some few such confusions 
occur, doubtless not made by the writer, but adopted from usage, 
which is the chief rule of right in regard of language. 

+ 307. Otus and Ephialtes, to get into close combat with 
Jupiter, set Parnassus on Olympus and on Parnassus rolled the 
peaky Pelion. 



ovid's fasti, i. 336. 17 

on high :• who always, when prepared to tinge your 320 
bare knife inthe reekingblood, ask 'Am I to proceed?' 
Nor proceeds he, unless ordered. Some conceive 
that the agonalia derives its name from actus, or 
driving, because the cattle do not come to the sacri- 
fice, but are driven. Some suppose that this fes- 
tival was named agnalia by the ancients — so that 
one letter be taken from its place. Or, because the 
victim dreads the knives seen ready for use in the 
water, was the day named from the agony of the 
cattle ? Some, too, imagine that the day obtained a 
Greek name, from the games and exercises used to 
be performed in the times of our fathers. Also an- 330 
cient usage called cattle agonia ; and this last is, in 
my opinion, the true cause of the name. And this 
is so far clear that the king of sacred duties is under 
an obligation to appease the gods by the male of the 
fleecy sheep, and what falls by the victorious arm 
is named victim, but has the title of hostia if the 
enemy had been withdrawn.f 

* 320. Ovid assigns five origins for the name of Agonalia, 
given to the 8th or 9th of Jan.— lo, the inquiry of the popa to 
the rex sacrificulus, agatne, whether he should knock the victim 
on the head (harsh words being avoided in religious ceremonies) : 
2o, the actus, or driving, of the victim, as in most cases the victim 
was driven to the sacrifice and not led : 3o, the agna, or victim, 
quasi agnalia : 4o, the agony of the victim in seeing the knives 
steeping in the water basins : 5<>, uyuv, Indus : 6<>, agonia, an 
ancient name of cattle. 

t 336. Hostia and Victima imply any thing sacrificed, but 
properly and anciently that which was offered on the agonalia. 
The sacrifice on this day had reference to the hostile relations of 
the city. The rex sacrorum, the religious successor of the ancient 
kings, represented the executive in a religious point of view ; 
while the sacrifice represented the enemy of the previous cam- 
paign, and was entitled victima, if the enemy became a victus 
hostis ; and hostia, if he only drew off his forces for the winter 
season, and there continued a hostia still. 

c3 



18 ovid's fasti, i. 362. 

Originally corn could reconcile the gods to man, 
and the shining grain of holy salt. Not yet had 
the stranger ship, impelled through the ocean's 
waters, imported the myrrh wept from the trickling 

340 bark : nor had Euphrates sent his frankincense, 
nor India her costum, nor had the thread-like 
shoots of the reddish crocus been known. The altar 
gave its smoke, content with savine, and the laurel 
burned with no scanty crackling. If any one 
could add violets to the chaplets wrought from the 
flowers of the mead, he was a man of riches. This 
blade, which now rips up the stomach of the stricken 
bull, had in those times no office in sacred duties, 
Ceres first exulted in the blood of the ravenous 
swine, taking satisfaction for her supplies in the 

350 condign death of the injur er. For she ascertained 
that the corn sown in early spring, milky with 
tender juice, was rooted up by the snout of the 
bristly swine. The swine had paid the penalty : 
warned by her example you should have spared the 
vine-shoot, goat, whom people seeing impelling his 
tooth into the vine, uttered such saying with no silent 
indignation — < Nibble the vine, Mr. Goat ; yet here- 
after, when you shall stand at the altar, there will 
be somewhat to be sprinkled on your horns/ Confir- 
mation follows the saying — the foe given up to you, 
Bacchus, for the damage, has his horns besprinkled 

360 ^7 tne P on ™g on of wine. Her malpractices injured 
the swine, her malpractices the goat too — What did 
you, ox, to deserve death,* what ye gentle tempered 

* 362. Ovid affects to give a reason for the sacrifice of that 
useful and deserving animal, the ox : but only gives a reason 
why the ox was killed, not sacrificed — that from his putrefaction 
bees may be produced. 



ovid's fasti, i. 387. 19 

sheep ? Aristseus wept, because he had seen his 
bees, cut off with their stock, to have left unfinished 
the commenced honey-combs : whom his mother of 
the bluish waters, consoling, while he painfully 
grieved, added to her sayings these concluding ad- 
monitions — ' Check your tears, boy. Proteus will 
alleviate your losses ; and show by what process you 
are to recover what has been lost. That, however, 
he may not delude you by changing his shapes, let 
strong ties confine both his hands. The youth 370 
comes to the seer ; and seizing the arms of the 
marine sage, relaxed in sleep, ties them together. 
Shifting his shape by his peculiar art, he assumes 
a different make : soon overpowered by the bonds, 
he returns to his natural features : and lifting up 
his countenance dripping with a bluish beard, he 
said, " Seek you by what contrivance to restore 
your bees ? Bury in the earth the carcass of a 
slaughtered steer : after being buried he shall fur- 
nish you what you require from us." The shepherd 
executes the orders : swarms glow from the tainted 
ox : the death of a single life has furnished thou- 
sands. 380 

Fate demands the sheep : wretch, she crop- 
ped vervain, which a religious old lady was accus- 
tomed to offer to the gods of her farm. What re- 
mains safe, when the fleece-bearing sheep and the 
farm-tilling kine lay down their lives at the altars?* 
Persia by the horse appeases Hyperion girded 
with beams of light, that a slow victim be not offered 

* 384. When sacrifice has gone so far as to involve the ox 
and sheep, it is scarcely necessary to account for its further ex- 
tension. No animal can expect, after their sacrifice, to escape. 



20 ovid's fasti, i. 41L 

to the rapid god. As it was once slain to the triple 
Diana for a virgin, now also, for no virgin, falls the 
deer. I have seen the Sapsei, and whoever borders, 
Haemus, on your snows, to offer the entrails of dogs 

390 to Trivia.* 

The ass too is slain to the stiff guardian of 
the farm field : the origin is, indeed, indelicate ; but 
in keeping with this deity. Greece thronged the so- 
lemnities of the ivy-berried Bacchus, which the third 
winter solstice restores at the established period. 
The gods also, who pay respect to Lyoeus, came 
together, and whoever was not an enemy to frolic : 
the Pans, and the youth of the Satyrs given to lechery; 
and whatever goddesses inhabit the streams and the 
lonely fields. Therehad also come the elderly Silenus, 
on his bending ass, and he who with red pole scares 

400 the startled birds. Who, having got a suitable grove 
for their jolly carousal, lay on couches strown with 
grass. Bacchus furnished the wine ; each had 
brought a chaplet for himself; a stream rolled its 
waters, to be scantily mixed. The N aids were there, 
some with their locks scattered without the luxuryf 
of a comb, others with their hair adjusted with art 
and labour : one waits with her dress tucked up to 
the middle of her legs, another has her bosom un- 
covered with disparted garment. One bares her 
shoulders, another trails her gown along the grass : 

400 no sandal ties bind her delicate feet. Others on one 
side supply the insinuating flame to the satyrs, some 

* 390. Ovid learned this in his exile at Patmos. Such allu- 
sions show that the present work was not finished until after his 
exile. There is no good reason to think that Ovid ever com- 
pleted more than the six books which we have. 

t 404. Usus often implies a comfort, convenience, or luxury. 



ovid's fasti, i. 438. 21 

to you, who bear your temples entwined with pine : 
you also they inflame, Silenus, of uncooled passion — 
It is downright lewdness, which does not allow you 
to be an old man. But the red Priapus, glory and 
keeper of the gardens, was captivated by Lotis from 
them all — her he desires, her he longs for, sighs 
for her alone, and gives his hints by leers, and en- 
deavours to gain her by sly insinuations. Haughti- 
ness is natural to the fair, and disdain attends 
beauty — she sneers on him, and conveys her con- 
tempt in her looks. 420 

It was night, and wine producing sleep, their 
bodies lay, overcome by deep slumber, in various 
places. Lotis, as she had been wearied by play, 
lay on the grassy earth, the furthest off, under the 
boughs of a maple. The lover rises, and holding in his 
breath, advances stealthily his silent steps, his posi- 
tion resting on tiptoe. When he reached the remote 
bed of the snow-fair nymph, he takes care lest the 
very current of his breath should sound. And now 
he was balancing his body on the nearest grass, yet 
she was still full of deep sleep. He is delighted ; 430 
and after drawing up her garments from her feet, 
he began to proceed toward the fulness of his 
wishes, along the path of fortune — lo ! braying with 
hoarse throat, the ass, that bore Silenus, uttered 
unseasonable cries. The nymph rising terrified 
both flings back Priapus with her hands, and flying 
raises the whole grove. But the god, too far pre- 
pared even in the part which modesty forbids us to 
name, was a subject of laughter to all by the light 
of the moon. By death the author of the outcry 



22 ovid's fasti, i. 462. 

paid the penalty ; and hence is an acceptable victim 

440 to the god of the Hellespont. 

Ye had been safe, birds, charmers of the fields, 
a class used to the woods and harmless — who make 
your nests, who keep warm your eggs with down, 
and with tuneful throat give forth delightful strains. 
But this avails you nought — for you incur the 
charge of loquacity ; and the gods conceive that 
you disclose their intentions. Nor, however, is that 
charge unfounded : for as being the very nearest* 
things to the gods, ye give true hints, one time 
with your flight, another with your cries. Long was 
the race of birds secure ; then at length they were 
slain, and the entrails of their informer gratified the 

450 gods.J Oft, therefore, burns on the glowing hearth 
the white ring-dove, the consort torn from her 
mate. Nor does the defence of the Capitolium 
avail that the goose should not furnish her liver for 
your dish, luKurious daughter of Inachus. In 
the night,f to goddess Night, is slain the crested 
cock, because with watchful throat he calls for the 
warm day. In the interval the Dolphin, a bright 
assemblage of stars, rises over the main ; and puts 
forth his head above his native waters. 

The succeeding day distinguishes the winter by a 

4gQ division in the middle : and the part which will re- 
main will be equal to the past. After leaving Ti- 
thonus his bride shall next behold the pontifical 
ceremonies to the Arcadian goddess. You also, 

* 447. Quisque with a superlative degree is used idiomatically 
for emphasis' sake — proxima quceque, the very nearest things to. 
t 455. In the night of this day. 



ovid's fasti, i. 485. 23 

sister of Turnus, the same day received in your 
temple, here where the Plain of Mars is traversed 
by the virgin's aqueduct.* 

Whence shall I derive the source and the man- 
ner of these rites ? Who shall direct my sail in 
the open sea? Do you yourself inform me, who 
derive your name from song ; and favour my pur- 
pose, that your honour be not subject to uncer- 
tainty. Born before the Moon, if you trust them 
respecting themselves, the land derives its name 
from the great Areas : here was Evander, who 47O 
although high born on both sides, yet was higher 
by the line of his sacred mother : who, soon as she 
had caught the fire of Heaven in her spirit, was 
used to utter from unerring lips verse full of 
divinity. She had said that troubles impended over 
her son and herself ; and many things beside, which 
gained fulfilment in time. For the youth, with his 
too true mother, exiled, leaves Arcadia andhisParr- 
hasian home. To whom weeping his mother says, 

" Check those tears, boy — your fortunes should 48 
be borne by you manfully. It was thus in the 
fates : and no guilt of your own has exiled you, 
but a god, — by the displeasure of a god have you 
been driven from your city.f You do not suffer the 

* 464. The aqueduct called Aqua Virgo was constructed in 
the reign of Augustus by Agrippa, when he was aedile. 

t 482. Ovid appears to be thinking more of his own exile 
than Evander's. In a piece of his Tristia he represents himself as 
exiled by the displeasure of a divinity, meaning Augustus. The 
cause of his exile is a mystery. It is supposed to be connected 
with the profligacy of Julia ; and to have only consisted in some 
indiscreet exposures of the family affairs of Augustus. It 
does not, at least, appear to have been anything of deep turpitude. 
Augustus affected to refer it to the loose morality of Ovid's poems. 



24 ovid's fasti, i. 510. 

penalty of desert, but the anger of divinity : it is 
something that guilt do not accompany your great 
distresses. As every man's mind is conscious, so 
he conceives within his bosom both the hopes and 
fears suited to his acts. Nor grieve, however, as if you 
were the first to suffer such evils : — that storm has 
sunk mightv men. The same suffered Cadmus, 
who driven once from the shores of Tyre, settled 

490 an outcast m Aonian soil. Tycleus suffered the 
same, and the same Jason of Pagasse, and persons, 
moreover, whom it were tedious to recount. Every 
soil is the brave man's home; as every sea the fishes'^ 
as to the bird whatever stretches over the open 
heavens. Nor, however, does the wild tempest 
shiver for the whole year; and you, trust me, shall 
have a season of spring." 

His mind strengthened by his parent's words, 
Evander cuts the waves with his bark, and makes 
Hesperia. And now, at the suggestion of his under- 
standing mother, he had driven his vessel into the 
current, and he was proceeding against the Tuscan 

500 stream. She spies the river's bank, on which the 
shallows of Terentus border, and the cottages dis- 
persed over the lonely place : and as she was, with 
her hair all loose, she stood before the poop, and 
with stern look withheld his hand while he guided 
the vessel's course : and stretching her arms toward 
the right bank afar, she strikes the pine wood deck 
thrice with no sane foot : and hardly, and hardly, was 
she stopped by the hand of Evander, from springing 
in her eagerness to stand upon the land. 

" Gods," said she, " of the sought for country, 

510 hail, and you, land, hereafter to give new gods to 



ovib's fasti, i. 536. 25 

Heaven, and you streams and you fountains, of 
which this friendly land makes use, and ye god- 
desses of the groves, and companies of Na'ids; be you 
seen with good omen both by my son and me ; and be 
that your bank touched with fortunate foot. Am I 
misled ; or will these heights become vast fortifications? 
and will the rest of the world derive their ordi- 
nances from this land ? The whole globe is promised 
one day to these mountains : who would suppose 
that the place had so large a share of destiny ! 
And just now the Dardan ships shall touch these 
shores : here also a woman shall be the cause of 
fresh war. My dear grandson, my Pallas, why put 520 
you on fatal armour ?— Put it on — you shall fall 
with no humble avenger. Troy, although van- 
quished, yet you shall vanquish ; and overthrown, 
rise up again : that your downfall shall overwhelm the 
homes of the enemy. Burn ye, triumphant flames, 
Neptunian Pergamus : — whether are those ashes 
the less exalted above the whole globe ? Just now 
shall the fond iEneas bring his sacred charge, and 
his father a second one : entertain, O Vesta, the gods 
of Ilium. There will be a time when the same 
person shall superintend you and the world ; 
and sacred rites be performed as a god himself 
worships : and with the Augustan house shall rest 530 
the wardenship of the country. It is the will of 
Heaven that this family hold the reins of power. 
Thence the grandson and the son of a god, though 
he should himself decline it, shall sustain his 
father's burden with heavenly intelligence. And 
as I shall be one day consecrated on an eter- 

D 



26 ovid's fasti, i. 555. 

nal altar, so shall Augusta Julia be a new divi- 
nity."* 

When with such sayings she came down to our 
times, her prophetic tongue stopped short in the 
midst of her strain. Landing from his ship, the 
exile stood on Latian herbage: — happy man, to 

540 whom that place was his foreign home ! And there 
was no long delay, until new dwellings rose ; and 
none was superior to the Arcadian on the hills of Auso- 
nia. Lo, the club-bearing hero drives thither the 
oxen of Erythea, having traversed the journey of 
distant lands : and while the Arcadian house is his- 
baiting place, the oxen wander unguarded through . 
luxuriant fields. It was dawn ; and startled from 
slumber, the Tirynthian guest perceives that two 
bulls are missing from the count. He seeks and 
sees no traces of the stealthy theft : Cacus had 

550 drawn the beasts backward into his cave : Cacus, 
the terror and shame of the Aventine wood, no 
small mischief to his neighbours and strangers. 
The man had a frightful figure, strength propor- 
tioned to his body, that body huge : — Mulciber was 
this monster's sire : and for a home a vast cave 

* 536. Roman ladies were named by the Gentile name, that 
is, usually, the middle name of their father : and when there were 
several daughters, they were distinguished by ordinals, piima, 
secunda, &c. or, if two only, as senior and junior. Augustus 
married Seribonia, whom he divorced after she had given 
birth to a daughter ; when he married the wife of Drusus, to 
whom she had borne one son, and, three months after her union 
with Augustus, a second. She was adopted, as a compliment, into 
the Julian house ; and is therefore named Julia, Augusta seems 
to be a title of the poet's invention, as a fit one under which to be 
deified ; for although her husband was entitled Augustus, she was 
not to be entitled on that account Mrs. Augustus. Her deif? ca- 
tion did take place many years after. 



ovid's fasti, i. 581. 27 

hidden in a long recess, hardly to be found even by 
beasts. Human heads and arms hang nailed aver 
the door ; and the ground is white, hideous with 
bones of men. After so ill preserving a part of 
his oxen, the son of Jove was on his departure : 560 
the oxen thieved lowed with hoarse cry. " I ac- 
cept the recal," says he ; and following the cry, 
comes vengeful through the woods to the horrid 
cavern. The other had obstructed the approach 
by a barrier of a fractured mountain : hardly 
would twice five yokes of oxen have moved that 
work. He exerts himself with his shoulders — 
even the Heavens had rested upon them — and with 
a shake disjoints the vasty load : and soon as it 
was uptorn, the crash startled the very sky, and the 
earth sunk down, stricken by the mass's weight. 
Cacus, locking hand in hand, excites the com- 
mencing conflict ; and fiercely conducts the strife 
with rocks and stumps. Whereby when nothing 570 
is effected, with little strength he resorts to the 
contrivances of his sire, and throws up flames from 
his roaring throat : which oft as he puffs forth, you 
would think that Typhoeus breathed, and that winged 
lightning was flung from iEtna's fire. Alcides is too 
quick for him, and the triple knotted club drawn 
down thrice and four times rested on the face of the 
opposing warrior. He falls, and vomits smoke 
mixed up with blood ; and dying beats the soil 
with his broad chest. The conqueror offers one 
bull from those to you, O Jove ; and invites Evander 
and the rustics : and builds an altar to himself which 580 
is entitled Maxima, here where a part of the city 



28 ovid's fasti, i. 608. 

has its name from an ox.* Nor is the mother of 
Evander silent, that the time is near, in which 
the earth shall have made sufficient use of Hercules 
as its own. But the blessed prophetess, as she lived 
most acceptable to the gods, so, as a goddess, holds 
this day in the month of Janus. 

On the ides a pure priest in Jove's temple offers 
the entrails of a wether on the flames : and every 
province was delivered back to our people : and 

590 your grand-father called by the title of Augustus. 
Read over the waxes distributed through illustrious 
halls ; to no man had resulted so high titles. Africa 
calls one conqueror after herself ; another records 
the defeat of Isaurian power, or of the resources of the 
Cretans ; the Numidians render one proud, Messana 
another ; another has derived his distinction from 
the city of Numantia ; Germany gave to Drusus 
both death and a title : — ah me unhappy, how short 
was the career of that heroism ? If he seeks titles 
from the vanquished, let Coesar assume as many as 

600 the mighty globe has nations. Some celebrated 
by one circumstance, possess the title, or of breast 
chain won or aiding raven : O you entitled " the 
Great," your title is the measure of your deeds : 
but he, who subdued you, was above a title. And 
there is no degree of surname beyond the Fabii : 
that house was entitled " the Greatest" by their ser- 
vices. But, however, all are celebrated by human 
honours, he has a title in common with supreme 
Jove. The ancients name holy things august ; 

* 582. The ara maxima was on the corner of the forum 
, Boarium, and just taken in by Romulus' walls. 



ovid's fasti, i. 633. 29 

temples are called august, duly consecrated by the 
hands of priests. From the source of this word is 610 
derived augury too, and whatever Jupiter enlarges 
by his aid.* May he enlarge the power of our chief, 
enlarge his years ; and may the oaken chaplet ever 
shade your door : and under the guidance of the 
gods, may the inheritor of so high a title undertake 
the world's weight with the same omen as his father. 
When the third Titan shall look back upon the 
past ides, the reproduced ceremonies shall be per- 
formed to the Parrhasian goddess. For erst car- 
penta bore the Ausonian matrons — these too I con- 
ceive to be named from Evander's parent — after- 620 
wards the honour is torn from them ; and every 
matron resolves by no issue to renew the image of 
their odious lords ; and that she may yield no off- 
spring, daring with secret stroke, she loosed from 
her womb the growing burden. They say that the 
senate reprimanded the wives who had dared these 
harsh deeds, but restored the wrested privilege. 
And now they order two courses of sacred services 
to be performed together to the Tegesean mother, for 
boys and for girls. It is not allowed to bring 
into that holy place aught made from hide, lest dead 
things violate the sacred hearth. If you love an- 630 
cient rites, f stand by the worshipper ; you shall catch 
names not known by you before. Porrima, and Pos- 
tovrta are besought, whether your sisters, Manalian 

* 612. Ovid thinks that Augustus and augurium are derived 
from the same word, augere ; and apply to whatever the gods bless 
and increase. 

f 631. It is difficult to imitate in our language the form of 
the original — si quis amas, if you, any one, love, if any one 
loves. 

D 3 



30 ovid's fasti, i. 659. 

nymph, or partners of your flight. The one is sup- 
posed to have predicted what had been far off ; the 
other whatever was about to turn up hereafter. 

The next day placed you in snow white temple, 
glistening Concord, where high Monetabears her steps 
aloft. Now you shall have a good view of the Latian 
640 crowd ; now have august hands replaced you. 
Furius of old, triumphant over an Etrurian commu- 
nity, had vowed it, and had anciently discharged the 
obligations of his vow . The occasion was that the 
multitude had taken up arms and seceded from the 
patricians ; and Rome was dreading herself her 
own strength. The late occasion is the better : — 
Germany, under your military conduct, honoured 
chief, extends her scattered hair. Thence you have 
offered in favour the first fruits of the nation triumphed 
over ; and constructed a temple to the goddess 
650 whom you yourself cultivate. This your mother set 
up both by her life and an altar, alone found worthy 
the bed of high Jove. 

When these things shall have passed over, having 
left Capricorn, O Phoebus, you will run through the 
constellation of the youth who rules the waters. 

When the seventh rising sun from this shall have 
plunged itself in the waves, now no Lyre shall sparkle 
in the whole heavens. In the night coming after 
this constellation, the fire shall be sunk, which 
twinkles in the lion's breast. 

Thrice, four times, have I rolled over the Calen- 
dar marking the seasons of observance ; and no 
where was any seed sown — day found ; when the 
Muse, for she understood, says to me — " This day 



OVID ? S FASTI. I. 686. 31 

is announced — Why seek you from the Calendar a 
moveable festival ? And as the day is unfixed, so qqq 
the occasion is fixed — when the land is impregnated 
after the seed is thrown." 

Stand chapleted, you steers, at the full stall; your 
task shall return with the warming spring. Let the 
farmer rest by a stake his plough discharged the ser- 
vice : the cold earth shrinks from any incision.* Over- 
seer, give repose to the land, when the sowing is done, 
give repose to the men who have tilled it. Let the 
townland make a holiday : purify the townland, 
swains, and to the townland altars give the yearly 
cakes. f Be the mothers of corn worshipped, both 670 
Tellus and Ceres, with their appropriate spelt and 
the entrails of a pregnant sow. Ceres and Terra 
keep a common charge ; the one furnishes an origin 
for corn, the other a situation. Fellow sharers in the 
toils of husbandry, by whom the ancients were im- 
proved, andthe acorn of the oak was replaced byhappier 
food; glut the dissatisfied husbandmen withboundless 
produce, that they may get worthy returns for their til- 
lage. Give to the tender seed continual increase ; and 
be not the new blade nipped during the cold snows. q$q 
While we sow, open the air with calm winds ; when 
it is covered in, sprinkle the seed with heaven's rain. 
And see that the birds, injurious to tillage, plunder 
not, in mischievous flight, the Cereal favours. You 
also, ants, spare the buried grain ; you shall have 
fuller stores of plunder after the harvest. Mean- 

666 . This seems to make a confused allusion to the effect 
of cold on wounds. 

t 670. It seems to be from the pertinacity of this pagan wor- 
ship, that pagan came to have its later sense. 



32 ovid's fasti, i. 708, 

time let it grow free from deforming mildew, and let 
not the sickly blade pale by the intemperate heat 
of the weather. And may it neither come short by 
poverty ; nor, more abundant than is tit, perish lux- 

59 o uriant by its own superfluity.* And be the fields clear 
of darnel, weakening the eyes, and may not the 
barren wild oat rise in the tilled soil. May the field 
with vast interest return produce of wheat, and spelt 
twice to sustain the fire, and barley. These wishes I 
make for you, these make yourselves, ye husbandmen; 
and may each goddess render the prayers availing. 
Wars long engaged men ; the sword was more fitted 
than the share, and the ploughing bull gave way to 
the charger. Hoes were idle, and spades made into 
pikes, and the headpiece wrought from the weighty 

700 narrow ' Thanks to the gods and your house ! 
Bound up with chains wars lie, now longtime, beneath 
our feet. Let the ox come under the yoke, the seed 
under the ploughed soil. Peace nurtures Ceres : 
Ceres is the nursling of Peace. 

But what day goes the sixth before the coming 
Calends, on this was their temple consecrated to 
the Ledean gods. To the brothers the divine bro- 
thers of the race of the gods built it by Juturna's 
lake.f 

Of itself our song conducts us to the altar of 

* 690. Corn was usually said luxuriare, when it ran up into 
blade, and with all its luxurious show, gave no harvest. 

t 708. There seem to be two Juturnae lacus, one in the forum, 
and another near the river Xumicius. It is also at the latter that 
Castor and Pollux are said to have been seen cooling their 
horses aftertheir hard day's fighting at the Regillus. Perhaps 
there was a temple built to them at the place ; and to this Ovid 
refers. In this supposition we could dispense with the for- 
mer lacus altogether, whose existence is very questionable. 



ovid's fasti, i. 724. 33 

Peace. This shall be the second day from the end 
of the month. Having your adjusted locks encircled 710 
by Actian boughs, Peace, attend: and continue gentle 
through the entire globe. Provided there be no 
enemy, be there also no occasion for triumph : you 
shall be to the imperial house a greater boast than 
war. May the soldiers bear arms whereby to re- 
strain arms ; and be nought, save pageant, sounded 
by wild trumpet. Let the globe both far and near 
dread the iEneadoe ; and if any land shall, perhaps, 
not fear Rome, may she love her. Priests add in- 
cense to the flames of Peace, and let the white vic- 
tim fall with stricken front. And that the house, 720 
which affords her, may live long with peace, entreat 
the gods, glad to hear dutiful prayers. 

But now the first division of my task is completed 
And with its month concludes my little book. 



EXD OF BOOK I. 



34 ovid's fasti. ii/20. 



BOOK II. 



Janus has an end ; with my poem encreases also 
the year : as a second month progresses, so let a 
second book proceed. Now for the first time, 
elegiac verse, do you sweep with fuller sail : you 
were lately, I remember, a flimsy structure. I 
have myself employed you a ready agent in love, 
when early youth frolicked in appropriate song.* I, 
the same, sing of religious subjects, and the days of 
observance marked on the calendar. Who would 
think that a transition lay from the former subject 
to the new ! 

This is my military service : I bear the arms I 
can, and my arm is not devoid of public duty 

10 altogether. If javelins are not whirled by me with 
nervous arm, nor the back of war steed pressed ; 
nor am I covered by the helmet and girded with 
sharp sabre — any one may be fitted to these arms — 
yet I follow up your honours, O Ceesar, with ear- 
nest bosom, and enter on the subject of your titles. 
Favour, me, then, and with benign look regard a 
little time my offerings, if you have any leisure 
from the pacification of the enemy. 

The ancient Romans called expiations februa : 

20 and now too very many traces confirm the expression, f 

* 6 Elegiac verse, composed of hexameters and pentameters, 
were not employed, like pure hexameters, on dignified subjects. 
Ovid composed his amatory poems, as well as his subseo^ent 
Tristia, in elegiacs. 

t 20. That is, this signification of the expression. 



OVID S FASTI. II. 



43. 35 



The pontiffs require of the king and the flamen wool- 
len threads, which, in the old dialect, had the 
name of febrna. And whatever cleansings the 
lictor takes for certain houses, parched corn with a 
grain of salt, they have the same name. The same 
the branch, which cut from off a pure tree* covers 
with leaves the holy temples of the priests. I have 
myself seen the flaminica requiring februa, and as 
she required them a rod of pine was presented to 
her. In short, whatever it is with which our hearts 
are purified, it had with our unshaven ancestors 
this name. 30 

From this the month was named ; because the 
Luperci, after cutting up a hide, purify the whole 
country, and consider that atonement : or because 
the season is pure, after quieting the dead, when 
the days are passed over in which offerings are 
made to the shades. f Our fathers conceived that 
purification removed all guilt and every cause of 
evil. Greece began the custom : she imagines that 
the guilty put off their horrid deeds when they are 
cleansed. Peleus released the son of Actor, as 
Acastus by the waters of Thessaly Peleus himself 
from the blood of Phocus. The easily persuaded 40 
iEgeus sheltered, with aid she little merited, the Col- 
chian woman, borne on bridled serpents through the 
empty air. The son of Amphiaraus said to Ache- 

* 25 That is, a pine tree, as appears from verse 28. 

t 35. The feralia took place near the end of Febr. : but 
whether they were one or many days is not clear. The plural 
form before us may be a mere amplification, occasioned the more 
readily by the plural form feralia. For days of observances 
usually took the plural names, which belonged properly to the 
observances themselves. 



<36 ovid's fasti, ii. 58. 

lous of Naupactus,* "Absolve my guilt;" and he 
absolved it. Ah too weak mortals, to imagine that 
the dire crime of bloodshed could be removed by a 
river's waters ! 

But, however, — that you should not be perplexed 
in an ignorance of the ancient arrangement — 
January, as it now is, so formerly also was the first 
month. What follows Janus was the final month of the 
,50 olden year : you, too, Terminus, were the conclu- 
sion of religious ceremonies. For the month of 
Janus was first, because the janua, or gate, is first ; 
the lowest month that, which is seme coated to 
the manes below. + The decemvirs are thought to 
have afterwards set in succession these periods 
parted by so long an interval. 

On the first day of the month Juno Sospita, 
neighbouring on the Phrygian Mother, is said to 
have been honoured by a new chapel. Where now, 
you ask, is the temple consecrated to the goddess 

* 43. Achelous, the person from whom the river was said to be 
named, which divided ^Etolia from Epirus. Possibly the poet 
is confused, as the ancients ever are, between the person and the 
river. This river is said to have sprung from the earth im- 
mediately after the deluge, and its waters were reputed to be par- 
ticularly sacred. The epithet of Naupactoan merely denotes 
iEtolian, Naupactus appearing to have no closer connection with 
Achelous, man or river. 

t 54. Ovid is the only writer who records that Numa called 
the month, which succeeded January, March ; and that which 
succeeded December, February ; and that the decemvirs so far 
altered this as to introduce the name of February between Janu- 
ary and March. It is usually said that Numa subjoined both 
January and February to December ; and sometimes that he 
prefixed them both to March. Although in the arrangement 
attributed by Ovid to Numa, January of one year should succeed 
February of the preceding year, yet January and February of 
any one year were parted by the intervention of all the other ten 
months. 



60 



ovid's fasti, ii. 78. 37 

on th« present calends: — it has fallen by age.* 
That the rest of our temples should not tumble 
tottering with like downfall, the watchful care of 
our inviolate chief has provided ; under whom 
our temples feel no age : and it is not enough 
that he places mankind under obligations, he obliges 
the gods too. Founder of temples, of our temples 
the holy restorer, may the gods, I pray, have a 
reciprocal care of you. May the dwellers in the 
skies give to you the length of years which you 
give to them : and may they remain on guard be- 
fore your doors. 

On the same day is the grove thronged of the 
Asylum, near to where the stranger Tiber wends . 
his course to the waters of the main. At Numa's 
court a sheep of two years is slain, and the Thun- 
derer's of the CapitoTium, and on Jove's topmost 
height. The southwind oft, enwrapped in clouds, 70 
excites the heavy rains, or the earth is hidden under 

lodging: Snow- 
ed © 

When the next sun, ready to retire into the 
western waves, removes from his glowing steeds the 
jewelled yoke ; on that night people, lifting their 
looks to the stars, shall say — " where is to-day the 
Lyre, which shone yesterday?'' and while they 
shall look out for the Lyre, they shall mark the 
sudden plunge of the back of mid Leo too into 
the flowing waters, f 

* 58. It is usually thought that Sospita is named from sospes : 
but we find the form Sispita on an ancient coin. The plural 
form templa, like delubra, has regard only to the single temple 
of Juno Sospita. 

f 77. Medii terga Leonis, the hinder half of it ; not including 
Hegulus, which is in the breast. 



80 



38 qyid's fasti, ii. 104. 

The Dolphin, whom lately you saw all embel- 
lished with stars, he shall fly your sight next night. 
Whether he was a successful spokesman in con- 
cealed love, or bore, with its master, the Lesbian 
lyre. What sea knows not, what land is ignorant of 
Arion ? He was used with song to check the running 
river : oft time the wolf, chacing the lamb, was 
stayed by that voice ; and the lamb stopped short 
in her flight from the voracious wolf : oft hound 
and hare lay under the shade of the same tree ; and 
the deer paused near the destructive lioness : and 
without strife sat the chattering crow in company 
90 with the bird of Pallas : and the pigeon was recon- 
ciled to the hawk. Cynthia is said to have often 
been amazed at your strains, tuneful Arion, as if 
they were her own brother's. 

The name of Arion had filled all the cities of 
Sicily, and the coast of Ausonia* had been capti- 
vated by the tones of his lyre. From that return- 
ing homeward, Arion went on board, and was bring- 
ing with him the riches thus won by his skill. Pos- 
sibly, unhappy man, you were in fear of the winds 
and the sea ; but the ocean was less dangerous to 
you than your own vessel. And now the helms- 
man with naked sword stood over him, and the rest 
of the conspired crowd with arms in their hands. 
What have you to do with the sword ! guide, sailor, 
your unsteady bark ; these are not the arms to be 
grasped by your fingers. Struck with terror he 
says, "I do not pray off death : but let me be 
allowed to take up my lyre and repeat a short 

* 94. Magna Graecia. 



100 



ovid's fasti, ii. 126. 39 

chaunt." They give permission, and smile at the 
vain delay. He assumes a chaplet, which may be- 
come your locks, Phoebus; and puts on a robe 
twice dipped in Tyrian purple — stricken by his 
thumb the chord has returned its usual tones : as 
the swan sings in melancholy air, when he has his 
white temples pierced by the rigid feather. In- HO 
stantly, in his bright array, he springs into the midst 
of the waters : the azure poop is sprinkled by the 
dashing brine. Then, beyond all belief, they say 
that the dolphin, with raising back, placed himself 
beneath the extraordinary burthen. Seated he 
both holds his harp, and pays by song the recom- 
pense of his conveyance, and calms by his strains 
the waters of the sea. The gods witness the humane 
act : Jupiter admitted the dolphin among the con- 
stellations, and ordered him to hold nine stars. 

Now could I wish that I had a thousand voices, 
and possessed your genius, Mseonian bard, where- 
with Achilles was celebrated ; while I sing in al- 120 
ternate verses the sacred nones.* Hence is heaped 
upon our calendar its proudest honour. My abi- 
lities fail, and a subject weighs me down too great 
for my strength. This day must I sing in par- 
ticular strain. Why was I mad enough to lay on 
eligiac measure so great weight ? that was a subject 
of heroic metre. Sacred father of your people, to 

* 121. Sacer, and more usually sacratus, from implying 
devoted to the gods, and thence condemned to sacrifice or death ; 
came to apply to any thing protected by such a sanction, as the 
plebeian tribunate. Perhaps it was from engrossing this with his 
other offices, that the emperor was regarded as Sacratus, and 
every thing associated with him. Thus the epithet in the text 
denotes much the same as " imperial." 



40 ovid's fasti, ii. 150. 

you the commons, to you the senate gave this title, 
this title we of equestrian rank. Yet fact conferred 

1 30 it before, you obtained but your true title, late even : 
long since were you the father of the globe. You 
hold here on earth that title which Jove holds in the 
heavens above ; you are the father of the human 
race, he of the gods. Romulus, submit : he makes 
your fortifications great by defending them, which 
you had left to be overleaped by Remus — You 
Tatius felt, and humble Cures, and Caenina ; 
under this chief each border of the sun is Rome's — 
You possessed some trifling stretch* of conquered 
soil ; Cossar holds whatever is beneath high Jove — 
You force away maidens ; he compels wives to be 
virtuous under hi* rule — You receive them into a 

140 an asylum ; he repels the guilty — Violence was 
your delight ; under Caesar flourish the laws — You 
possess the title of master, he of princef — Remus 
charges you ; he has granted pardon to his very 
enemies — Your father deified you, his father he. 

Already protrudes the Idaian youth, so far as the 
waist, and pours out liquid waters with commingled 
nectar. Lo, also, if any one was used to shudder 
at the northern blast, let him be delighted ; a softer 
breeze comes from the zephyr. 

The fifth morning star has raised from ocean's 
wave his glittering beam, and the season of opening 

] 50 spring progresses. Be not deceived, however ; 

* 137. Kescio quid is perhaps a form expressive of contempt r 
not unlike as with us to affect to forget a person's name is a species 
of insult. 

t 142. ' You were a king, he is only the first of our citizens.* 



ovid's fasti, ii. 178. 41 

cold remains for you, it remains ; and departing 
winter has left deep traces. 

Be the third night come ; — forthwith you will see 
the keeper of the Bear put forth both his legs. Among 
the Hamadryads and the archer Diana, Callisto 
was a member of the sacred company. Laying her 
hand on the bow of the goddess, she says, " Be the 
bow, which I touch, witness of my celibacy." 
Cynthia approved, and said, " Keep your pledged 
contract, and you shall be with me the first of all 
my train." She would have kept the contract, 160 
had she not been fair ; she was on her guard 
against mortals : from Jove she incurs guilt. 

Phoebe w T as on her return, after coursing through 
the woods thousands of wild beasts ; while the sun 
occupies or more, or, at least, mid-day. When 
she gained a grove — the grove was dark with many 
an oak; in the midst was a deep fountain of ice- 
cold water, — " In this wood, Arcadian maid," says 
she, " let us bathe." She blushed at the untrue 
name of maid. She said so also to the nymphs ; 
the nymphs doff their dress ; she is ashamed, and 
gives unhappy tokens of lingering delay. She had 170 
put off her garments ; convicted by the size of her 
womb, she is betrayed, unhappy girl, by the evi- 
dence of her own burthen. To whom the goddess — 
" Forsworn daughter of Lycaon, quit the virgin 
troop, " says she, " nor stain the pure waters." 

The moon had ten times filled up her orb with 
horns ; she was a mother who had been thought a 
maid. Tie offended Juno storms, and changes the 
girl's shape. What do you ? It was with reluctant 

e 3 



42 ovid's fasti, ii. 200. 

soul she received Jupiter. And when she has seen 
the hideous looks of the concubine, " Let Jupiter," 

180 says she, " go into her arms now." The squalid 
bear was wandering over the lonely mountains, 
who had lately been an object of fondness to su- 
preme Jove. Her son, conceived in secret, was just 
passing three times five years, when the mother was 
thrown in the way of her child. She, indeed, stood 
bewildered, as if she knew him, and moaned : the 
moan was a parent's words. The boy, unknowing, 
would have pierced her with a sharp javelin, had 
not each been snatched into dwellings above. They 
twinkle adj acent constellations : before is she whom 
we entitle the Bear, * the Bearward has the attitude 

190 °f one pressing her rere. Still rages Saturn's 

daughter, and requests the grey-headed Tethys not 

to lave the Arcadian Bear by arrival at her waters. 

On the ides smokes the altar of rustic Faunus, 

where the island cleaves the parted waters. 

This was that day on which 306 Fabii fell on the 
Vejentine fields. One house had undertaken to 
supply soldiers and the burthens of the city. Sol- 
diers of the same family name take up arms, a vo- 
lunteer troop. f From one camp issues the high- 
born soldiery, any one of whom was calculated to 

200 be appointed a commander. { The nearest route is 



* 189. This is the Great Bear, called also the Plough, and 
Charles "Wain. The less Bear is nearer to the pole, and indeed 
thelast star of its tail is now the polar star. 

t 198. Profiteri militiam implies to volunteer ; and arma 
equivalent to militiam, seems to be here understood after prqfessa 
from arma, which precedes. 

+ 200. It is not easy to decide whether quels is relative to 
castris, or to miles equivalent to milites. Ovid seems to confound 



ovid's fasti, ii. 227. 43 

by the right janus of Carmenta's gate. Pass not 
through this, whoever you are ; it has an omen ; 
report is that the three hundred Fabii passed out by 
it. The gate is free from blame ; but yet it has an 
omen. When they reached with quick step the 
rapid Cremera, — troublous it ran with the rains of 
winter — they pitch their camp on the plain : with 
naked swords they break in vigorous battle through 
the Tyrrhene troops : no otherwise than when lions 
from Libyan cliff rush on the herds scattered over 
the broad fields. The foe fly in all directions, and 210 
on their rere receive inglorious wounds : the earth 
reddens with Tuscan blood. Thus a second time, 
thus many times they fall. When it is not in their 
power to prevail in open fight, they set themselves 
for ambush and concealed array. 

There was a plain : hills shut in the extremities 
of it, and woods, calculated to harbour the savages 
of the mountains. About the middle they leave a 
few men and dispersed cattle : the rest of the mul- 
titude lurks concealed by the underwood. Behold, 990 
as a torrent, swollen by rain, or by snow, which 
flows melting by the warmth of the zephyr, is im- 
pelled over tillage, over roads ; nor, as before it 
was used, does it bound its waters, shut in by the 
borders of its banks : so the Fabii fill the valley in 
wide dispersion ; and whom they see, they overthrow ; 
nor have they any apprehensions further. Whi- 
ther rush ye, noble house ? ye rely unwisely on the 

the date of their departure from Rome with that of their mas- 
sacre, the latter happening July 18th, a year and a half, at least, 
after the former. It is not at all plain whether this janus was a 
part of the Caxmental gate, or only contiguous to it. 



44 ovid's fasti, it, 248. 

foe : artless nobles, guard against the weapons of 
treachery. Valour falls by guile ; the enemy 
spring from all sides into the open plains, and oc- 
cupy the whole frontier. What are a few brave 

230 men to do against so many thousands ? or what re- 
mains for them in this distressing crisis ? As a 
boar, chased in Laurentine woods afar, with tusk, 
as lightning quick, scatters the nimble dogs, yet 
soon after dies himself; so they perish not una- 
venged ; and they deal and suffer wounds with mu- 
tual blow. 

One day had sent to war the whole Fabii, one 
day cut off those sent. Yet it is to be supposed, 
that the gods themselves provided that seed of the 
Herculean house should remain. For a youth be- 
low puberty, and unfitted yet for arms, alone of the 

240 Fabian house survived : with a view, doubtless, 

that you, O Maximus, should be one day born, by 

whom the country should be re-established by 

drawing out the war. 

Conjoined in situation, three constellations, the 

Raven and Snake, and the Cup lies in the midst 

between both — On the ides they are hidden ; they 

rise on the following night : and why these three 

should be connected, one with another, I shall 

sing. 

It happened that Phoebus was preparing a solemn 

festival to Jove — my story shall occasion no long 

delay* — " Go," says he, " my bird, that nothing re- 

* 248. It is not known where Ovid got this fable : but it is 
not badly devised to link together points of natural history. The 
miikiness of the fig before its ripening, its sweetness when ripe, 
its rapid maturization, the sickness of the raven about the time, 
in consequence of which it abstained from water, are all men- 
tioned by Pliny. 



ovid's fasti, ii. 272. 45 

tard the holy ceremonies, and bring a little water 
from the running fountain. " The raven lifts with 250 
his hooked claws the gilded cup, and flies his airy 
course on high. A fig- tree stood crowded full 
with fruit still hard : he tries it with his bill ; it was 
not fit to be plucked.* Thoughthless of his com- 
mands, he is said to have seated himself under the 
tree, in slow waiting until the fruit should become 
sweet. And now satisfied, he seizes a long water 
snake in his black claws, and returns to his lord, 
and he gives a false tale — " This was the occasion 
of my delay, besetting the running waters ; he has 
obstructed the fountain and my duty." " Do you," 260 
says Phoebus, " add falsehood to fault, and dare to 
show a willingness to delude by your words a pro- 
phetic god ? But while the milky fig shall be firm 
on the tree, be the cold water drunk by you from 
no spring." He said, and as a lasting memorial of 
the ancient deed, the snake, the bird, the cup, 
twinkle conjoined stars. 

The third dawn after the ides beholds the bare 
Luperci : and the ceremonies proceed of the 
two-horned Faunus. Say, Muses, what is the source 
of the ceremonies : and whence they were derived 
when they reached the abodes of Latium.f The an- 270 
cient Arcadians are reported to have worshipped 
Pan as god of cattle ; he was very frequent on the 



* 254. Ovid seems to use Jicus in both its senses, of the tree 
and the fruit : the former sense attending Jicus as used in verse 
253, and the latter as referred to by earn in the present verse. 

t 270. The construction of the text is an idiomatic confusion 
of two clauses : as if we should say, " we spent the day a long 
one," instead of " the day which we spent was a long one." 



46 otid's fasti, ii. 298. 

hills of Arcadia. Pholoe shall be witness, witnesses 
the waters of Stymphalus, and Ladon, who runs 
into the sea with rapid current ; and the hills of the 
Nonacria's grove encircled by pine forests, and high 
Cyllene, and Parrhasia's snows.* Pan was the 
guardian of the drove, Pan the god of mares, he 
obtained offerings for the safety of the sheep. Evan- 
der removed with him the woodland divinities. Here, 
where now the city is, there was then the city's 

280 site. Thence we respect the god, and the rites in- 
troduced by the Pelasgi : the Dial Flamen was ap- 
pointed to these by ancient usage. 

Why then they run, and why — for it is the cus- 
tom thus to run — putting off their dress, they have 
their persons naked, ask you ? The fleet god him- 
self loves to run at large over the high hills, and 
starts on a sudden the savage beasts. The god, 
himself naked, naked bids his priests to go : and 
dress was not convenient enough for running. The 
Arcadians are said to have been on the earth before 

290 the birth of Jove, and that nation was before the 
moon. Their mode of life resembled the savage 
beasts, spent amid no comforts : the multitude was 
as yet shut out from improvement, and uninformed. 
Instead of houses, they knew nothing but leaves ; in- 
stead of corn vegetables : their nectar was water raised 
in both hands. No steer panted under the crooked 
plough ; no land was under the control of the hus- 
bandman : as yet there was no luxury of a horse ; 
each bore himself. The sheep walked, having his 

* 276. " Parrhasian snows/' for " the snowy Parrhasia," 
The Ladon joined the Alpheus before it reached the sea. 



ovid's fasti, ii. 322. 47 

body clothed by his own fleece.* They spent their 
days under heaven's canopy, and had their bodies 
naked, trained to endure the heavy rains and the 
southern blast. Now, too, uncovered, they exhibit 300 
a memorial of the old habits, and offer testimony to 
the worldly condition of the ancients. 

But why Faunas particularly shuns clothing, a 
tale is handed down full of old humour. The 
Tirynthian youth was going in the train of his mis- 
tress. Faunus from a high hill saw them both. 
He saw and caught the flame. " Mountain god- 
desses,'' said he, " I have nothing to do with you — 
yonder lass shall be my swee.theart." 

Tvieeonia's queen proceeded, having her shoulders 
covered by her perfumed tresses, distinguished by 
a gilded robe. Golden umbrellas repelled the hot 310 
sunbeams, which, notwithstanding, the hands of 
Hercules bore. And now she occupied the grove 
of Bacchus, the vine-fields of Tmolus : and the 
dewy Hesperus was running his course on dusky 
steed. She enters a grotto, whose roof was fretted 
with tufo and natural pumice : at the very entrance 
was a prattling streamlet. 

While the attendants prepare the feast and the 
wines for the carousal, she arrays Alcides in her 
own attire. She gives him her gown of fine texture, 
dyed in Afric purple ; gives her tapering cincture, 
with which she had been lately girdled. The cine- 320 
ture was all too small for his breast ; she undoes 
the ties of the gown, that he may put through his 

* 298. The sheep wore her own wool, instead of its being 
shorn and manufactured into clothing for mankind, who went 
naked in these days. 



48 ovib's fasti, ii. 345. 

bulky hands ; the armlets he had broken, never 
made with a view to those arms ; the scanty sandal 
pinched his big feet. She takes from him both his 
ponderous club and his lion's skin ; and her own 
smaller arrows were stowed in the quiver.* Thus 
dining, thus they commit themselves to sleep : and 
they lay asunder on contiguous beds. The reason 
was, that they were preparing solemn rites to the 
institutor of the vine, to perform them purely when 

330 the day should be risen. 

It was the middle of the night — what does not 
restless passion dare ? Faunus came through the 
darkness to the dew-sprinkled grotto. And when 
he sees the attendants relaxed in sleep and wine, 
he catches hopes that the same depth of sleep at- 
tends their superiors. He enters ; and the daring 
debauchee wanders to this side and that, and 
stretches forth his wary hands, and follows after 
them. He had arrived at the groped out bedding 
of a covered couch, and was on the very point of 
being successful in his first venture. When he touched 
the hide shaggy with coarse hair of tawny lion, 

340 he was alarmed, and lifted his hand, and terrified, 
he shuddered through fear, asf when the wayfaring 
man has recovered his startled step on seeing a ser- 
pent. He next feels the soft covering of the couch, 
which was close by, and is deceived by the false 
token. He mounts it, and lays him down on the frame 

* 326. This line presents great difficulties, and is probably 
corrupted. 

f 341. Ut saepe, ceu saepe, ut quondam, ceu quondam, ut 
olim, ceu olim, and other such forms are frequent in poetical 
comparisons, where the force of saepe, olim, or quondam, is not 
easily seen. 



ovid's fasti, n. 374. 49 

near him. Meantime he draws up the covering 
from the bottom : the legs were bristled all rough 
with thick hair. As he explores further, the Tiryn- 
thian hero has suddenly flung him back : he tumbles 
from the top of the couch. A crash is made : the 350 
Mseonian summons the attendants, and calls for light. 
When it was brought in, the whole transaction is 
exposed. Thrown heavily from the high bed, he 
groans, and with difficulty lifts his limbs from the 
hard ground. Both Alcides laughs, and those who 
saw him sprawling : the Lydian lass laughs at her 
gallant. Deceived by dress, the god is no favourer 
of dress that mocks the eye ; and he summons offi- 
cials naked to his rites. 

To foreign sources add, my Muse, the Latin ones ; 
and let our courser run on his native dust. 360 

A goat was slain after the usage to horny-footed 
Faunus, and a crowd came by invitation to the 
scanty feast ; and while the priests prepare the tit- 
bits transfixed with ozier spits, the sun being in the 
midst of his course, Romulus and his brother and 
the shepherd youths were exposing their persons to 
the sunbeams and the plain, and in a course of ex- 
ercise strengthening their arms by the gauntlet, and 
spear, and the mass of the casting- stone. A shepherd 
from the height — " Romulus," said he, " and Re- 
mus, the steers, — rescue, — the robbers are driving 
them through the trackless fields." It would take time 3 70 
to arm themselves : they break out both on different 
sides ; the plunder was recovered by the speed of 
Remus. When he has returned, he snatches the hissing 
dainties off the spits; and he says, " This at least 



50 ovid's fasti, ii. 393. 

none, save a victor, shall eat." As he says he does 
and with him the Fabii. Romulus comes there too 
late, and sees the dishes and the bones all empty. 
He smiled ; and was annoyed that the Fabii could 
conquer, and Remus ; that his own Quinctilii could 
not. The fame of the action remains — they put off 
their garments to run ; and it has an abiding cele- 

380 brity because it resulted favourably. 

Perhaps too you would require why that place is 
named the Lupercal, or what cause denotes the day 
by a similar name.* 

The vestal Ilia had given birth to her heavenly 
issue, when her uncle held sovereign sway. He or- 
ders the babes to be borne away, and thrown to 
perish in the stream. What do you ? One of these 
shall be Romulus. His servants reluctantly execute 
his melancholy orders : yet they drop a tear, and 
convey the twins to a lonely place. The Albula, 
which the drowning of Tiberinus in its waters 
changed to Tiber, by chance was swollen by the 

390 floods of winter. Where the forumsf are now, you 
might see boats to wander about, and where lies 
your valley, Circus Maximus. When they came 
so far, for they could not pass further, one or other 

* 382. The force of the original is best seen by rendering it, 
* if you should inquire, as perhaps you will, why that ["particular 
place under the Palatium is named Lupercal, and the festival in 
question Lupercalia.' 

t 391. There were two sorts of forums in Home, the one kind 
chiefly designed for litigation, and the other mere market places. 
Of the former sort there were in Ovid's time three, the Great or 
Roman forum, and those of Julius Caesar and Augustus, to 
which were afterwards added the forums of Nerva and Trajan. 
Tho market forums were comprised under the title of Macellum, 
and were principally the forum Boarium, Olitorium, and Pisca- 
rium ; to which were added the forum Suarium and others. 



ovid's fasti, ii. 417. 51 

of them says, " But how like they are ! how lovely 
both are ! yet of the two that one has more life in 
him. If paternity is to be proved by look, if the 
likeness deceive not, I suspect I know not what god 
to be your father. But if any god were the author 
of your birth he should bring relief to you in this 
hour of peril. Relief he doubtless would bring, if 400 
your mother did not also need relief — who has be- 
come aparent and bereft of her children in one day.* 
Born together, to die together, go ye together be- 
neath the waters." He had done talking, and he 
laid them down from his arms. They screamed 
with like cry, you would think they had sense. 
With moist cheek these return to their homes. 

The hollow trough, in which they were placed, 
supports them on the surface of the water. Alas, 
how much of destiny does one slight board convey. 
The trough, driven up into the dark wood, settles 
in the mud, as the river gradually sinks. There was ^|q 
a tree, its remains continue : and what is now called 
the Ruminal fig-tree, was the Romulan. A nursing 
she-wolf came, strange circumstance, to the twins, 
when they had fallen out of the trough. f Who 
could think that the savage did no injury to the 
boys ? To have done no injury is not enough : she 
even does them service. The hands of a relation 

* 402. Perhaps the sense of this passage may be thus 
developed — * If I may judge from your looks some god is your 
worthless father. But he should assist you just now at least ; 
and I should think that he would, if I did not see your mother 
to be in equal distress.' 

t 413. Expositos may denote 'exposed,' as at iii. 54; or 
may be opposed to impositos of verse 407, implying that they had 
fallen out of the trough as it upset. — Compare, iii. 600. 



52 OVID^S FASTI. II. 438. 

could expose whom a she-wolf feeds ! She stood, 
and with her tail she fawns upon the tender nurs- 
lings, and with her tongue licks the shape of both 
the bodies. You might know that they were the 
sons of Mars — they had no fear. They draw her 
udder, and are nurtured by the supply of the milk 
420 afforded to them* She occasioned the name of the 
place, the place itself that of the Luperci: the 
nurse has a high reward for the milk she gave. 

What hinders that the Luperci were named from 
Arcadia's mountain ? Lycsean Faun has a temple 
in Arcadia.* 

Married girl, what wait you ? Never by strong 
herbs, nor by prayer, nor by wizard chaunt will you 
become a mother. Submissively receive the strokes 
of the fructifying arm ; soon the father-in-law shall 
hear the title of grandfather, so longed for. For it 
was that time when wives by painful lot were afford- 
430 ing but few pledges of their womb. " What does 
it profit me," cried Romulus, " to have carried off 
the Sabine women !" — ij was he who was then in 
possession of the regal sceptre — " if my violence has 
produced me not soldiers, but only war. It had been 
better not to have had daughters-in-law." 

At the base of the Esquilise there was a grove, un- 
cut for many years ? under the name of great Juno. 
When they came to this, both the wives and their 
husbands together bent their knees, and lay suppli- 
ant on their faces : when on a sudden the tops of 

* 424. Ovid implies that Faunus was named Lyceus, from 
Lyceum in Arcadia: and that hence his priests were named 
Luperci, by a translation of the supposed root of Lyceum into 
lupus. 



ovid's fasti, ii. 462. 53 

the wood shook tremblingly, and the goddess uttered 
these wondrous sounds through her grove — " Let a 440 
sacred goat," says she, " enter the Italian wives." The 
terrified crowd was confounded by the dark saying. 
There was an augur : his name is lost by time : he 
had lately come an exile from Etruria.* He offers 
up a goat : the girls, as they were ordered, submitted 
their backs to be stricken by the hide, which had 
been cut into thongs. The moon was recovering her 
horns in her tenth round : and soon the husband 
was a father, and a mother the wife. Thanks were 
offered up to Lucina:f the lucus, or grove, conferred 
upon you this title : or because you, O goddess, 
have the commencement of light. Spare, I beg you, 450 
easy Lucina, the pregnant girls, and gently bring 
forth from the womb the matured burthen. 

Should the day be risen, cease you to rely on the 
winds : the breeze of this time has lost credit. The 
blast is irregular : and for six days the gate of the 
iEolian prison, unbolted, lies quite open. 

The eased Aquarius now sinks on his knees, with 
his urn sloped. Piscis, next receive the heavenly 
steeds. They tell that you and your brother, — for 
ye twinkle conjoined! constellations, — bore two di- 
vinities on your back. Dione once flying the fright- 460 
ful Typhon, at the time when Jove made battle for 
the skies, came to the Euphrates, attended by the 

* 444. The Romans obtained all their early interpretations of 
augury from Etruria, except on some more important occasions, 
when they resorted to the Delphic oracle. 

t 450. That is, ' As a testimony of their gratitude to Juno they 
gave her the title of Lucina.' 

+ 459. By a string which runs over a large space, and the 
star on whose knot was much observed. 



54 ovid's fasti, ii. 588. 

infant Cupid, and sat on the border of Palestine's 
stream. Poplar and reeds covered the tops of the 
banks, and the sallows, too, gave promise that they 
could be concealed. While she hides, the grove 
has resounded with the wind : she turns pale with 
terror, and fancies that the forces of the enemy are 
near. And while she held her son to her bosom, 
" goddesses of the waters," says she, ." aid us, and 
470 give relief to two divinities." And there is no pause : 
she has already sprung forward : the two fishes sus- 
tained her ; for which now they possess constel- 
lations as a merited service. In consequence the 
superstitious Syrians esteem it a crime to place this 
sort of animal on the table, nor assail with tooth the 
finny race.* 

The next day is unoccupied ; but the third is de- 
voted to Quirinus. Who holds this name, was Ro- 
mulus of old : whether because the spear was en- 
titled cur is by the ancient Sabines — the warrior 
god came from the spear to the skies — or the Quirites 
conferred their own name on the king ; or because 
480 he had joined Cures to the Romans. For the father, 
who rules the fight, when he has seen the new for- 
tifications, and many a war achieved by the hand of 
Romulus, says — " Jupiter, the Roman power has 
strength ; it needs not the services of my blood. 
Restore to a father his son : though one is lost, 
there will be one to remain to me both for himself 
and for Remus. — ; There will be one, whom you 
shall exalt to heaven's blue skies/ — These words you 
used to me : be Jove's words confirmed." Jove had 

* 474. But they offered fishes, or at least metallic representa- 
tions of them, to their goddess Atergatis. 



ovid's fasti, ii. 511. 55 

assented : at his nod each pole was shaken, and 
Atlas felt the heaven's pressing weight. 490 

There is a place ; the people of old named it the 
marsh of the gazelle. There Romulus, you happened 
to be laying down the laws to your subjects. The 
sun vanishes, and interposing mists blot out the 
skies, and a heavy shower falls with pouring rains. 
It thunders ; the heavens are rent asunder with 
shooting flames : they fly :* the king on his father's 
horses sought the stars. There was wailing, and the 
Senate was under a charge of false murder, and pos- 
sibly that persuasion had fixed itself in men's minds : 
butProculus Julius was coming from Longa Alba;f 
and the moon was shining, nor was there any use of 
a torch : when with sudden commotion the clouds 500 
rumbled on the left. He stept back, and his hair 
stood on end. Graceful, and larger than life, and 
adorned with the trabea, Romulus seemed to stand 
before him in the middle of his way ; and at the 
same time to have said : — " Forbid the Romans to 
wail ; and let them not offend my godhead with their 
tears. Let the duteous crowd offer incense, and ap- 
pease the new Quirinus : and let them cultivate the 
profession of their fathers, and a life of war." He en- 
joined, and disappeared from his sight into subtile air. 
He calls the citizens together, and repeats the words 
enjoined upon him. A temple is raised to the god, 5^® 
the hill too named from him, J and appointed days 

* 496. Fitfuga — We must not confound this with the popu- 
lifugia, on the day after the nones of July, commemorative of a 
panic in battle. 

t 500. Proculus was a native of Longa Alba. 

X 511. Some derive the name of the hill directly from the 
Sabines, who are related to have obtained the Capitolium and 



56 ovid's fasti, ii. 536. 

reproduce the religious services to the Roman father. 
Why the same day is named also the festival of 
Fools learn. There is wrapped up in it a trifling 
reason, I own, but a suitable one. The land of old 
had no skilful agriculturists : rugged wars jaded 
those active men. There was more of renown in the 
use of the falchion than of the curved plough : the 
neglected field bore little to its owner. Yet the an- 
cients sowed their spelt, reaped spelt ; and gave to 

520 Ceres, as first fruits, the spelt, her own discovery. 
Warned by the advantage of it, they parched their 
corn : and by their errors suffered many losses. 
For at one time instead of corn, they swept off black 
ashes, at another they set their cottage on fire. 
They constituted a goddess of the kiln : delighted 
with her the husbandmen entreat that she should 
proportion the heat to their corn. Still the chief 
curio* proclaims the fornacalia in words of form, 
and appoints no fixed festival : and in the forum, 
where many a slab hangs around, each curia is de- 

530 noted by a stated mark : and the foolish part of the 
community knows not what is their curia : but per- 
forms on the last day the returning rites. 

Honour is paid also to the graves of the dead : ap- 
pease the spirits of your ancestors, and offer on the 
cold pyres small presents. Dutiful attention is 
acceptable in place of rich offerings : subterranean 
Styx holds no greedy gods. To enwrap the tomb-stone 

Quirinal for their residence. Niebuhr goes so far as to assume 
that the Sabines founded a town there, to which they gave the 
name of Quirium. 

* 518. There were thirty curiones, of whom one was entitled 
curio maximus. 



ovid's fasti, ii. 562. 57 

with cast-off wreathes is sufficient, and to scatter 
meal and the sparing grain of salt ; and bread 
soaked in wine, and loose violets : let all these be 
contained in a potsherd thrown out in the middle of 
the street. Nor do I prohibit richer offerings : but 540 
even by that may the phantom be appeased : add 
prayers and suitable words, after raising an altar. 

This usage iEneas, no unsuitable teacher of 
duteous feeling, just Latinus, brought into your 
lands. He was in the habit of making annual 
offerings to his father's spirit ; hence the people 
learned off the dutiful ceremonies. But at one time, 
while with contentious arms they maintain long 
wars, they have neglected the parental holidays. 
It was not without its bad consequences ; for 
Rome is said, by reason of that ominous circum- 
stance, to have felt the heat of the funeral fires in 
its vicinity. For my part I scarcely believe it : — 550 
but they are said to have come forth from their 
tombs, and uttered their complaints in the hour of 
still night : and they report that, through the streets 
of the city and the fields of Latium, hideous spec- 
tres howled, a ghostly multitude. After that the ne- 
glected honours are restored to the graves, and a 
moderation resulted to the strange sights and deaths. 

While, however, these things shall take place, 
linger unwedded, ye lasses ; let the torch of pine- 
wood await days more pure : nor let the inverted 
spear adjust your virgin locks, who shall appear to 
your impatient mother already marriageable. Con- ^qq 
ceal your torch, Hymenseus, and remove it from 
the melancholy fires ; other torches have the 



58 ovid's fasti, ii. 586. 

mourning tombs. Be the gods also concealed, 
with the doors of their temples closed. Be the 
altars without incense, and let the hearths have 
no fires. Now unsubstantial spirits wander about, 
and bodies furnished with tombs : now the spectre 
feeds on the food set before them. 

Nor however holds all this, longer than that 

there remain of the month as many days, as my 

verses have feet. This day, because on it they 

make offerings to the dead, they have entitled 

570 feralia — This is the last day for propitiating the dead. 

See, an old woman, full of years, sitting in the 
middle of the girls, performs rites to Tacita, yet is 
any thing but tacit herself; and places, with three 
fingers, three stalks of frankincense under the 
threshold, where the lowly mouse has made itself a 
secret passage. She then binds together enchanted 
threads with a dark reel ; and rolls in her mouth 
seven black beans : and after sealing a pilcher's 
head with pitch, and piercing it with a needle of brass, 
she stitches it up, and roasts it in the fire. She also 
drops wine on it ; and whatever wine is left either 
she drinks herself, or her attendants, but herself the 
580 greater portion. — " The tongue of the foe we have 
tied up, and the mouths of our enemies, " says she, 
departing; and the old woman makes her exit 
staggering drunk. 

You will soon ask us, who is the Dumb goddess ? 
Hear all that I have learned through the old men of 
former times. 

Jupiter, taken with the irresistible love of Juturna, 
endured much, which so great a god should not 



ovid's fasti, ii. 600. 59 

have suffered. She would at one time coneeal 
herself in the wood among the hazel copses, at 
another time spring into the waters which bore her 
own name. He calls together the water goddesses, 
as many as Latium held ; and in the midst of them 
all speaks words to this effect: — " This your sister 590 
stands in her own light ; and shuns what is her 
advantage, to lock herself in the embrace of the 
highest god. Provide ye for us both ; for that 
which will be my great delight, shall be your sister's 
great benefit. Do ye oppose her, as she flies, at the 
very bank, that she plunge not in the river's waters." 
He had spoken. All the water goddesses of the 
Tiber assented, and they who occupy your chambers, 
holy Ilia. 

There happened to be a maid named Lara : but 
her old name, given her from her infirmity, was the 
former syllable repeated.* Full many a time had 600 
Almo said to her, " Daughter, hold thy tongue" — Nor 
does she, notwithstanding, hold it. She, soon as she 
arrived at the marsh of sister Juturna, says — " Fly 
clear of the banks ;" and repeats the words of 
Jupiter. She also went to Juno, and expressing 
her pity for the wife, she says — " That husband of 
yours is wenching after the naid Juturna." Jupiter 
was furious, and deprived her of that tongue, 
which he employed so immoderately ; and charges 
Mercury : — " Lead her to the shades below — proper 
place that for the still : she shall be a water goddess, 
but it shall be of an infernal marsh." Jove's com- 610 

* 600. The poet implies that Lara was only a corruption of 
Lala, which implied Talkative. 



60 ovid's fasti, ii. 632. 

mands are being executed ; a grove received them 
in their journey : she is said on that occasion to 
have appeared fair in the eyes of the escorting god. 
He applies force : with her looks she entreats him, 
instead of words, and in vain exerts herself to speak 
w 7 ith dumb mouth. And she becomes pregnant, 
and gives birth to twins, the Lares, who watch the 
town wards, and are ever on wakeful guard in our 
city. 

The affectionate kinsfolk have named the next 
day the Caristia, and the crowd of relations come3 
to the family feast. The reason is, that from the 
graves, and the relations who have died, it is a grati- 

620 flcation to go directly to the living : and after the 
loss of so many, to see whatever remains of the 
stock, and to count up the degrees of kindred.* Let 
the innocent come : far away from this, far away be 
the unnatural brother, and the mother unkind to 
her own child ; he in whose eyes his father is tough- 
lived, who calculates his mother's days; the mother- 
in-law, whohates and unfairly oppresses her daugh- 
ter-in-law. Be there no brothers present of the 
line of Tantalus, no wife of Jason, nor she who gave 
to the husbandmen parched seed corn ; nor her 
sister, nor Progne, nor Tereus, who wronged both ; 
nor any one who swells his possessions by a course 

53Q of wrong to his own kindred. Give incense, gay 
companions, to the gods of the house : Concord is 
thought to attend particularly favourable on this 

* 622. The Caristia followed the feralia, that people may re- 
move the gloomy impressions made on their spirits by the con- 
templation of death, and see how many of their relations were 
still on the land of the living. 



ovid's fasti, ii. 653. 61 

day. And give the first offerings of the after 
course, that the presented platter, testimony of the 
grateful honour, may feed the cinctured Lares. 
And just now when the last hour of night shall 
recommend calm slumbers, take in your hands 
copious wine, about to ask a blessing, and say, 
" a health to ourselves, to you our country's father, 
great Ceesar, health :" and as you pour out the 
wine let your words be holy. 

When the night shall have passed over, be the 
god with his usual honours resorted to, who 
partitions by his evidence the fields. You, O Ter- 640 
minus, whether you are a stone, or a stock buried 
in the field by the ancients, yet, even so, possess 
divinity. You the two owners adorn with chaplets 
on their opposite sides, and present you with two 
sets of garlands, and two of cakes. An altar is 
raised: to this the country dame herself brings, in 
broken* pot, fire taken from the warm hearth. The 
old man himself cuts up the fire wood, and piles it- 
together when chopped, and exerts some force to 
drive the branches into the stubbornf earth. While 
he excites the first blaze with dry bark, a lad stands 
beside him, and holds in his hands the broad 
basket. Thence when he has thrice thrown the 650 
produce of the soil into the midst of the fire, the 
little daughter stretches out to him the sliced 
honey combs. Others hold wine ; all are severally 

* 645. It is not necessary to take curtus out. of its usual sense 
of stumpy or mutilated. "Heinsius, although he conceives that 
curtus sometimes denotes parvus merely, yet does not assign 
that sense here. This fire pot seems to have been the prop°er 
thing in which to convey fire, and probably to burn it too. 

t 648. The ground being still frozen. 



62 ovid's fasti, ii. 674. 

thrown as offerings on the fire : the remaining 
crowd* look on, and maintain religions silence. The 
common Terminus is sprinkled also by the blood of 
a lamb : nor is he dissatisfied when a sucking pork 
is offered to him. The artless neighbours come 
together, and throng the feast ; and they sing, holy 
Terminus, your praises. You bound free states, 
and cities, and vast monarchies : every field shall 

660 be without you in litigation. You have no solici- 
tation; are corrupted by no gold : preserve by 
law and integrity the farms committed to you. 
Had you formerly marked out the land of Thyrea, 
three hundred bodies had not been sent to the 
land of forgetfulness : nor had Othryades been 
enveloped in the piled armour. f Ah, how much 
blood did he pour out to his country ! What, when 
the Capitolium was being formed at first ? namely, 
the whole crowd withdrew, and gave place to Jove ; 
Terminus, as the ancients tell, remained conjoined 
in the temple; and occupies the sacred site with 

670 mighty Jove. Now, too, that he may see nothing 
but the stars above him, in the roof the place has a 
small aperture. After that, Terminus, no unsteadi- 
ness is allowed you : whatever post you have been 
once set on, there abide. And make no allowances to 

* 654. The turba casse, all the family except the old man. 

t 666. The armour of which he despoiled the enemy and 
which he borne into his own camp to erect a trophy. The con- 
jectural reading lectus carries great probability : which may be 
either interpreted, picked out, chosen ; in which sense legere is 
often used, and which applies here with great propriety because 
these 300 were, of course, picked men. Another sense of lectus 
is suggested by Statins, who, alluding to the inscription of 
Othryades' name on the trophy in his own blood, writes — Et 
Laccdamonium Thyre lectura cruorem. 



ovid's fasti, ii. 700. 63 

a neighbour's entreaty, that you seem not to set 
man before Jove : and whether you be struck by 
plough share or by harrow, cry aloud, " Mine is 
this land, that yours." 

There is a road which leads the citizens to the 
land of Laurentum, the seat of sovereignty, for 
which the Dardan chief once made : there, Termi- 680 
nus, under the shape of the sixth mile stone from 
Rome, you see sacrifice made to you of the entrails 
of the fleecy herd. To other nations territory has 
been assigned under its limits — the globe's wide 
stretch and Rome's are one. 

Now must I tell the flight of Tarquin's royal 
house : from this the sixth day from the end of the 
month has derived its name. 

Tarquin held the last sovereign rule over the Roman 
people ; a man who outraged laws, but brave m 
battle. He had taken some cities by capitulation, 
stormed others : and Gabii he made his own by a 
shameful artifice. For the youngest of three, plainly 690 
a son of the tyrant's, came in the stilly night into 
the midst of the enemy. They had drawn their 
swords — " Strike," said he, "an unarmed man : that 
my brothers would be glad of, and my father Tar- 
quin, who has torn my back with merciless lash" — 
That he may be able to say this, he had undergone 
stripes. The moon shone ; they look upon the 
youth, and sheath their swords : and when his 
dress was drawn down, they see his back marked. 
They weep even, and beg that he would superintend 
the management of the war on their side : he 
craftily concurs with these inexperienced men. 700 



64 ovid's fasti* ii. 725. 

And now possessed of power, he sends a friend, 
and inquires of his father what course he would point 
out to him of handing over Gabii. There was near 
the house a garden in a high state of cultivation , 
with flowers of sweet scent, having its soil divided 
by a streamlet of gently purling water : there 
Tarquin hears the secret commands of his son ; 
and with his staff strikes off one by one the towering 
lilies. When the envoy has returned, and told of 
the decapitation of the lilies, the son says — u I un- 
derstand my father's bidding." And no delay is 
suffered. — The chief men of Gabii are cut off, and 
the fortifications given up, stripped of their com- 

710 manders. 

Lo, shocking to be seen, from the midst of the 
akar issues a snake, and putting out the fire, snatches 
up the entrails. Phoebus is inquired of. The 
answer is thus given : " Who first shall kiss his 
mother, he shall rule." They brought hasty kisses 
to their mother, each of them, the crowd trusting 
without understanding the god. Brutus was a 
wise affecter of the fool, that he might be safe, dire 
tyrant, from your wiles : he lying on his face kissed 
mother earth, while he was supposed to have fallen 

720 by striking his foot against an obstacle. 

Sometime Ardea is beleaguered by the standards of 
Rome, and under blockade endures weary delay. 
While they are unoccupied, and the enemy fear to 
join battle, the soldiery laid up in camp spend a life 
of indolence. The young Tarquin* entertains his 

* 725. It would seem from various passages of this book, 
that the title of Tarquinius belonged properly to the heir 



ovid's fasti, ii. 749. 65 

associates both with feasting and wine ; and the 
king's son addresses them : — " While this stubborn 
Ardea detains us in indolent warfare, and permits us 
not to restore our arms to our native gods ; think 
you are the partners of our bed faithful ? And are 
we a subject of responsive anxiety to our wives ?" 730 
they extol each his own : the argument gets hot by 
faction ; and both tongue and heart are warm with 
much wine. He rises, to whom Collatia had given 
an honoured name : — " There is no occasion for 
words ; trust facts," says he ; " abundance of the 
night remains — Let us mount our steeds, and make 
for the city." The proposal meets a ready accep- 
tance : the horses are bridled. They had borne their 
masters : forthwith they seek the royal palace : 
there was no warder at the door. Behold they find 
the royal daughter-in-law, chaplets scattered on her 
neck, to be spending the night on with wine before 
her. 740 

From that, with quick pace, they seek Lucretia : 
she was spinning ; before her couch were the work- 
basket and soft wool. Her maidens by the frugal 
lamp were spinning the assigned tasks : amid whom 
she herself speaks thus in silvery tones — " There 
must be sent to your lord — Now, now hasten you, 
girls — as soon as possible a cloak wrought by our 
hands. But what have you heard ? for you are wont 
to hear more : how much of the war do they say re- 
mains ? You shall yet be defeated and fall : plaguy 
Ardea, you hold out against braver warriors, who 

apparent. Possibly this was an Etrurian usage preserved in 
that family ; but I do not venture to follow it in my translation. 

G 3 



66 OVID'S FASTI, n. 771. 

750 compel our husbands to be from home. Only may 
they return ! But / have my fears, for he my hus- 
band is rash, and rushes any where with naked 
sword. My senses leave me, and I faint, often as 
the image of him as engaged in the fight occurs to 
my mind : and an icy dullness pervades my breast/' 
she concludes by bursting into tears , and relaxes 
the tight thread ; and she has hidden in her bosom 
the expression of her countenance.* Even this 
became her ; tears became the virtuous matron ; and 
her countenance was worthy, and in keeping with 
her gentle nature. — "' Drop your alarms, I come/' 
says the husband. She has caught new life ; and 

760 from her husband's neck has hung, a sweet burthen, f 
All this time the royal youth catches impassioned 
flames, and hurried off by blind desire he loses all 
control of himself. Her figure wins him, and her 
fair complexion, and her yellow locks ; and that 
grace which accompanied her, resulting from no 
training. Her words gain upon him, and her tone, 
and that she cannot be seduced : and the less hope 
there is, the more does he desire. 

Now the cock, preannouncing the dawn, had 
given his larum ; when the young men are on their 
return to their camp. He has his absorbed thoughts 
devoured by the likeness of the absent fair : and as 

^70 he retraces more points and more engage him — Thus 
she satj — Thus she was attired — Thus she spun the 

* 756. In gremio deposuit vultum — Hid her tears in her 
Tobe. 

t 760. The excitement of her feelings left her no strength to 
stand : but it was sweet to the husband to sustain the dear weight, 
as she hung fondly from his neck. 

$ 774. Sic, . .hie — referring to the image which his passionate 
imagination called up. 



ovid's fasti, ii. 790. 67 

warp — Her neglected tresses thus lay loosed upon her 
neck — She had that expression of countenance — 
thai complexion — that make — that loveliness of 
feature. As the billow is used to abate after 
a high storm, but yet from the wind which has been, 
the wave is swollen : so although the reality of the 
loved form was no longer near, the love abided 
which the living form had raised. He burns, and 
impelled by the stimulus of a tyrant's love, he me- 
ditates both violence and guile for the unmeriting 
wife — " The end is doubtful : we shall dare the 780 
utmost/' said he ; " he may see to it, whether it is 
god or chance who aids the daring.* It was by 
daring that we won Gabii, too." 

Having said this, he has girded himself with his 
sword, and pressed his charger's back. Collatia re- 
ceives the youth in brass bound gate, just as the sun 
prepares to hide his face. A foeman, in the guise 
of a visiter, enters the halls of Collatinus. He is 
courteously entertained ; — he was connected in 
family. f How much mistake is there in the human 
mind ! Unknowing the world, unhappy thing, she 
prepares to entertain her enemy. J He had finished 790 

* 782. " Something always aids the bold, be it God or chance ; 
and to it I commit the event of my present bold design." 

t 788. When Tarquin Prisons took Collatia he appointed his 
nephew Egerius, lieutenant of it ; who thus got the title of 
Collatinus. The present Collatinus was son of Egerius, as the 
present king son, according to some authors, of Priscus. 

$ 790. Perhaps the plural form of hostibus is not merely 
poetical : for even in prose, and in the very Bible, we meet such 
forms, where the writer would suggest that the particular in- 
stance falls under a general case — " She entertains, as people 
have often done their worst enemies — such is their inability to see 
into men's bosoms." 



68 ovid's fasti, ii. 814. 

the entertainment : slumbers require their own 
hour. 

It was night, and there were no lights in the 
whole house — he rises, and from the scabbard draws 
the gilded blade ; and he comes, virtuous wife, to 
your chamber. And when he has thrown himself 
on the bed, he says : — " Lucretia my sword is in my 
hand : I, who speak to you, am the king's son, and 
Tarquin." She makes no reply : for she has no 
voice, no power of speech, or any understanding in 
her whole breast : but she trembles, as when the 
little lambkin, seized upon after leaving the pen, 

800 lies at the mercy of the unsparing wolf. What 
would you have her do ? Is she to resist ? Feeble 
woman shall be defeated in the struggle. Is she to 
cry out ? But he has in his right hand a swoid to 
slay her. Is she to fly ? Laying his hand upon her 
breast he holds her down, a breast never touched be- 
fore by a strange hand. A lover and a foe he presses 
her with entreaties, and promises, and threats : nor by 
prayer, promise, or threat does he shake her firm- 
ness — " You avail little said he ; I will deprive you 
of life for the purpose of accusing you. The gallant 
shall be a false evidence of gallantry. I will slay a 
slave, in whose company you shall be said to have 
been detected. " The woman overcome by her fears, 

810 yielded herself up to her sense of character. Why 
exult you, victor ? This victory shall be your des- 
truction. Ah, at what a price has one night's plea- 
sure stood to your throne ! 

And now day had risen : she sits with her hair in 
disorder, as a mother is used, when about to go to 



ovid's fasti, ii. 838. 69 

her son's funeral pyre. She summons her aged 
father, with her constant husband from the camp : 
and waving all detainments, each is come : and 
when they see her state, they ask what is the sub- 
ject of her distress ; for whom she prepares a 
funeral; or with what calamity she is afflicted. For a 
long time she is silent, and covered with shame she 
conceals her face in her dress: her tears flow like 
running water. On one side her father, on the 820 
other her husband console her tears, and entreat 
she would tell : and they both weep and feel the 
alarm of an undefined fear. Having made three 
efforts to speak, thrice she failed ; and venturing a 
fourth time, even so she lifted not her eyes. — " Shall 
we owe this, too, to Tarquin ? I shall publish," 
says she, e I shall publish, unhappy woman, myself 
my degradation ;" — and what she can, she relates : 
the conclusion remained : she wept, and the 
matron's cheeks were flushed. Her father and her 
husband excuse her, as being forced :* — " The par- 
don, which you give," said she, " I myself deny 
me." Nor is there any pause : she pierces her 830 
bosom with a knife, which she had concealed, and 
falls, covered with blood, on her father's feet. 
Then too, on the very point of death, she has a 
concern not to fall in an unseemly manner : these 
were her thoughts even at the moment of her fall. 

Lo, over her body bewailing their common loss, 
both her father and her husband lose all energy. 
Brutus is by, and at last by his vigour belies his 
name, and snatches from her dying body the 

* 829. Coactx is governed by the phrase dant veniam facto, 
equivalent to ignoscunt, 



850 



70 ovid's fasti, ii. 861. 

piercing blade ; and holding it dripping with noble 
blood, he uttered with threatening accents these 

840 bold words : — " I swear to you by this blood, mag- 
nanimous and pure, and by your disembodied spirit, 
which shall be to me a divinity, that Tarquin shall 
give vengeance, with his exiled race : now long 
enough has my native vigour been concealed.' ' She 
turned her glazing eyes, as she lay, toward the 
voice, and seemed to approve the words by bowing 
her head. The matron of a heroic spirit is borne 
to her burial, and draws after her tears and the 
popular hatred. Her gaping wound lies open.* 
Brutus by his cries excites the citizens, and relates 
the horrid acts of the king. Tarquin, with his 
children, flies. The consul undertakes the annual 
jurisdiction. That was the last day of mo- 
narchy. 

Am I deceived ? or is the swallow come, har- 
binger of spring? and does she fear lest winter 
revertingf trace back her course ? Often, however, 
Progne, will you complain that you made too great 
haste, and your husband Tereus shall be delighted 
at your shivering. 

And now two nights remain of the second month ; 
and Mars presses his steeds with yoked car. The 
name of Equiria has adhered, given by the circum- 

g@0 stance;! which the god witnesses in his own plain. 
You come in your order, Gradivus: your season 

* 849. For the purpose of popular excitement, 
t 854. Qua, used adverbially for qua via, by any means, per- 
haps. 

$ 859. Ex verOf from the equi of the races. 



ovid's fasti, ii. 864. 71 

requires its place ; and the month is near marked 
by your name. We are come into the harbour, 
and finished the book with the month : next my 
skiff must launch on other waters. 



END OF BOOK II. 



72 ovid's fasti, hi. 586. 



BOOK III. 



Mars, god of war, laying aside for a little time 
your shield and spear, attend ; and loose from hel- 
met your glossy locks. Should you, perhaps, ask 
what a poet has to do with Mars — the month which 
is being sung has its name from you. You see your- 
self that wild wars are carried on by Minerva's arm : 
whether muses she the less on liberal studies. After 
the example of Pallas, accept an occasion for lay- 
ing aside your spear : you will find somewhat also 
to do unarmed. Then too you were unarmed, when 
the Roman priestess received you ; and you gave 
10 to this city suitable seed. 

The vestal Silvia* — for what forbids us to start 
from that ? — went in the morning for water to lave 
the religious utensils. She had reached so far as 
the bank sloping with an easy path. The earthen urn 
is laid down off her head. Fatigued she has rested 
on the earth, and received the breeze in her open 
bosom, and re-adjusted her tossed hair. While she is 
seated, the shady willows* and the singing birds have 
induced sleep, and the water's gentle purl. A soft 
slumber has imperceptibly stolen over her subdued 

* 11. The mother of Romulus is either named Rhea Silvia 
or Ilia ; which more philosophic historians are disposed to regard 
as names of different personages confounded together in the 
mist of antiquity. Ilia is more frequent in poetry : but Ovid 
often uses Silvia too ; and copies are at variance on the usage in 
most passages. 

1 17. Meaning, perhaps, the bees in them; which accords with 
a description of Virgil's. 



ovid's fasti, hi. 40. 73 

eyes; and her hand, become powerless, drops from her 
chin. Mars sees her, and seeing desires, and de- 20 
siring enjoys her; and by celestial power concealed 
his stealthy deed. 

Sleep departs : she lies pregnant : for now within 
her womb you lay, founder of Rome. Feeble she 
rises ; nor understands she why she rises feeble : 
and resting herself against a tree, she speaks to this 
eifect : — 

" May it prove favourable and fortunate, I beg, 
what I have seen in sleep's airy phantom : or was 
it too distinct for sleep ? * Methought, I stood 
near Ilion's fires ; dropping from my hair, the 
woollen fillet falls before the sacred hearth. From a 30 
certain part two palm trees, wonderful to be seen, 
shoot up together : of these the one was greater, 
and with its heavy branches had overshadowed all 
the earth, and had reached the highest stars with 
its young foliage. Behold, my uncle employs the 
axe against them — I shudder at the remembrance, 
acid my heart palpitates with fear. A woodpecker, 
bird of Mars, and a she-wolf fight in defence of the 
two trees : by means of these both palms were pre- 
served in safety." 

She had spoken ; and she took up her pitcher, 
although her strength was not fully recruited : she 
had filled it while she relates her vision, f 40 

* 28. Clarius somno, more distinct than sleep, that is, than a 
dream, too distinct for a dream. 

f 40. It was against religion for a Vestal to lay down her 
pitcher of holy water : and to prevent it the bottom of the pitcher 
was rounded. Perhaps it would be refining too far, if we suppose 
Ovid to have this in view when he thus represents her as filling 
her pitcher after she had rested. 



74 ovid's fasti, hi. 61. 

As time proceeded, Remus growing, Quirinus 
growing, her womb was swollen with the divine 
burthen. Now two signs remained to the lightsome 
god, so that the year should not elapse by the com- 
pletion of its course — Silvia becomes a parent : the 
idol of Vesta is said to have set her virgin hands 
before her eyes.* At least her altar shook as her 
priestess bare, and the terrified flames sunk beneath 
their ashes. 

When Amulius learned this, who disregarded 
every thing fair — for he kept possession of power 

5Q torn from his brotherf — he orders the twins to 
be drowned in the river : the water has shrunk 
from the crime : the boys are left on dry ground. 
Who knows not that the infants grew up on the milk 
of the savage, and that a woodpecker often brought 
food to them when exposed ? I would not suppress 
mention of you, Larentia, nurse of so high a stock, 
nor of your circumstances, humble Faustulus. 
Your praises will come, when I shall tell of the 
Larentalia; these December holds, month dear to 
the gods of self enjoyment 4 

The sons of Mars had grown up to the age of 
eighteen, and the young beard was just beginning 

50 to rise under the yellow locks. The sons of Ilia 
were giving out the laws at their request^ to all the 

* 45. Perhaps there was an idol of Vesta in the Alban tem- 
ple, but there was none in the Roman. 

t 50. I am disposed to regard this as confirmatory of 
Amulius's character as contemptor aequi : that the poet may not 
seem to call him so merely for enforcing the penalties of a 
Vestal's breach of vow. 

+ 57. Yet the probabilities are in favour of the opinion that 
these Larentalia were in honour of a different person. 

§ 62. That is, they exercised an authority over the rustics, 
which they acknowledged. 



ovid's fasti, hi. 84. 75 

swains who tilled the land, and the herders of kine. 
Frequently do they come home gratified with the 
blood of robbers, and restore to their appropriate 
fields the oxen which had been carried off. When 
they learned their birth, the announcement of their 
father expands their thoughts ; and they are 
ashamed to confine their celebrity within a few 
cottages. And falls Amulius pierced by the blade of 
Romulus, and the sovereignty is restored to his 
grandfather, now stricken in years. Fortifications 
are laid ; which, though they were small, yet it did 
not serve Remus to have overleaped.* Now, w T here 70 
there lately had been woods, and the retreats of 
cattle, there stood a city ; when the father of the 
everlasting city says : 

" God of war — of whose blood I am believed to 
be begotten ; and that I should be believed, I shall 
give sure tokens — with you we commence the Roman 
year : let the month named from my father roll on 
first.' 

The saying is confirmed, and he calls the month 
from his father's name : this dutiful feeling is said 
to have pleased the god. And yet the ancients 
respected Mars beyond all : this allowance the war- 
like multitude made to their passion for arms. The °0 
descendants of Cecrops respect Pallas, Crete of 
Minos Diana,f the land of Hypsipyle Vulcan, Sparta 
and Pelope'ian Mycense Juno, the skirts of Msena- 
lus the pine-wreathed head of Faunus ; Mars was a 

* 70. According to Ovid, Remus was brought to trial for it, 
and condemned to die. 

t 81. Dictynna of the Cretans, goddess of the chace, is iden- 
tified with Artemis or Diana. 



76 ovid's fasti, hi. 108. 

fit subject of reverence to Latium, because lie rules 
over arms - arms gave to that untamed people both 
substance and fame. 

But if you happen to have leisure, consult the 
calendars of other states : in these also will appear 
a month under the name of Mars. That was the 
third with the Albans, the fifth with the Faiisci, 

90 the sixth with your free state, Hemic soil : there is 
a concurrence between the Aricini, and the Alban 
calendar, and the steep walls built by the hand of 
Telegonus. The Laurentes reckon this the fifth, the 
iEquicolus the tenth month, the crowd of Cures the 
first of the second quarter ; and you, Pelignian war- 
rior, accord with the Sabinesyour progenitors: with 
each people this god is fourth. Romulus, that he 
may in the order, at least, exceed all, devoted to 
the author of his birth the first month. 

Nor had the ancients so many calends as 
now : that their year was shorter by a couple of 

]Q0 months. Not yet had you, Greece, an eloquent 
but no very brave people, communicated to the 
conquerors your conquered improvements. Who 
fought well, he knew the improvements of Rome ; 
who could hurl the javelin, he was eloquent. Who 
had then perceived or the Hyads or the Piiads,* 
daughters of Atlas, or that there were at the ends of 
the axis a couple of poles ? That there were two 
Rears, of which the Cynosure was looked to by the 

* 105. This name is properlv written either Pliades or 
Pleiades. The Hyads and Piiads are both assemblages of stars 
in the Bull. The former were named Sueu!a3 by the Latins, by a 
misconception, as Cicero informs us, of the Greek theme : the 
Piiads were named Versnliis.. 



ovid's fasti, hi. 124. 77 

mariners of Sydon, the Grecian bark to take obser- 
vation of Helice ?* and the signs of the zodiac, which 
her brother reviews in the long year, that these the 
sister's steeds dash through in a single month. Free 1 10 
and unnoticed the stars ran over the year : but it 
was, however, agreed upon that there were gods.f 
The men of those times attended less to the motion 
of the signs, gliding through heaven, than to that of. 
their own standards, to lose which was no small 
crime. Those were, I own, of hay ; but hay had re- 
spect, as great as you now see your eagles to have. 
A long pole conveyed the elevated manipuli, or 
bundles ; whence the manipular soldier is entitled ,J 
With their minds uninformed, therefore, and want- 
ing as yet abstract science, they lost in every five years 
ten months. § It was a year when the moon had 120 
completed her tenth revolution. This number was 
then in high respect : either because there are so 
many fingers by help of which we are used to rec- 
kon ; or because in the tenth month the woman 



* 108. The Cynosure is the Little Bear, whose last star is 
the polar star ; Helice tho Great Bear whose two foremost stars 
are the pointers to the polar star. Less exact observations 
assumed the latter constellation as the north, from which it is 
distant several degrees. 

t 112. Perhaps the sense of this passage is — " They imagined 
that the stars were unregulated in their movements, although they 
admitted the existence of the gods — They never supposed that 
the gods regulated their apparently irregular movements:" for 
this we should take currebant for currere credebantur, a very 
allowable acceptation. 

t 118. Varr. derives manipulus from the circumstance that 
those of the same companies advanced to the fight holding each 
other's hands. 

§ 120. More literally — " They spent lustres too short by ten 
months — the lustres which they reckoned were short by ten 
months." 

h3 



?8 ovib's fasti, hi. 148. 

bears ; or because we come up to ten with the 
number enlarging, after that a commencement is 
made for a fresh start. Thus Romulus divided into 
ten sets the hundred fellows, and established ten 
hastati, and the princeps had as many men, as 
many the pilanus, and he who served on horse re- 

130 cognised by law. Nay too, he also assigned as 
many subdivisions to the Titienses, and whom they 
entitle Ramnes, and to the Luceres.* 

In the year, then, he retained the usual number* 
ing : for this period the sorrowing wife bewails her 
husband's death, and that you may not doubt, sup- 
posing that the calends of March were not formerly 
the first in the year, you may direct your mind to 
these traces. The laurel leaf f is removed by the 
flam ens, which has stood the whole year, and new 
boughs are raised to the dignity. At this time the 
gate of the Rex is green, when the tree of Phoebus 

140 is planted there. That Vesta also should be neat, 
wreathed with new leaves, the whitishf laurel leaves 
the Iliac hearth. Add, that in the secret temple 
the fire is said to be renewed, and the refreshed 
flame catches strength. And I have no small as- 
surance that the former years set out from this, in 
that Anna Perenna began to be worshipped in this 
month. Hence, too, the ancient honours are said 
to be entered upon, up to the period of your war, 
faithless Punic. To conclude — the fifth month 



* 132. Each of the three tribes contained ten curias. 
f 137. Laurea, from denoting a laurel leaf, is often used for a 
laurel wreath, or branch, or even for laurus itself. 
£ 142. Carta , after losing- its green gloss, faded. 



ovid's fasti, hi. 174. 79 

from this had been Quintilis ; and thence sets out 
whatever month is named from its order. *' J " 

Pompilius, invited to Rome from the olive-bear- 
ing lands, first perceived that two months were 
wanting ; whether so taught by the Samian, who 
considers that we may be born over again ; or his 
own little Egeria informing him. But, however, 
even still the seasons wandered, until, amid the 
many cares of Csesar, this too was one. That god, 
and the head of so high a descent, did not judge 
that these matters were too humble for his notice ; 
and he wished to foreknow the heavens, his pro- 
mised place, and not to enter, a stranger god, the 
unknown abode. He is said by precise observations 160 
to have distributed the sun's delays to return to its 
due signs. He united ten times six to 305 days, 
and the fourth part of one whole day. This is the 
year's amount. Every lustrum there must be added 
one day, which is made up of the fractions.* 

"If it be allowed poets to hear the private sug- 
gestions of the gods, as report, at least, thinks that 
it is — tell me why, Gradivus, when you are suited 
to manly services, the matrons observe your fes- 
tival." 

Thus I : — Mars thus spoke to me, dofTing his 
helmet, but yet the missile spear was in his right 
hand: — 170 

"This is the first time that I am invoked to the 
pursuits of peace, a god serviceable to arms ; and I 
direct my march to a new camp. Nor am I aweary 
of my movement ; I take pleasure to stay on this 

* 166. Csesar's year had an advantage over the Egyptian by 
the intercalation of a day every fourth year. 



80 ovid's fasti, hi. 198. 

side also; that Minerva may not fancy that she 
alone can do this. Learn, poet engaged on the 
subject of the Latin Calendar, what you require, 
and impress my saying in remembering bosom. 
Rome was small, if you would go back to her 
original constitution : but while small there was in 

180 ner ? nevertheless, promise of the present city. The 
walls of defence were already raised, too narrow 
for the numbers one day to be, but thought too 
wide for their own crowd in those days. Should 
you ask what was my son's palace ; see his house of 
reed and thatch.* He was used to take the blessing 
of calm slumber in straw ; and yet, from such bed 
he arrived at the stars. 

" And already the Romans had a fame greater 
than their city, and yet they had no wives or fathers- 
in-law. The rich neighbours spurned poor sons-in- 
law ; and I was hardly believed to be the author of 

190 his birth. It injured their reputation to have lived 
in shepherd homes, to have pastured oxen, and to 
hold but few acres of unfarmed soil. Every thing, 
birds and the beasts of the field, mixes with her 
mate ; and the snake has some female, from which 
to raise issue ; intermarriage is conceded to the 
remotest tribes : but no woman was inclined to wed 
a man of Rome. I felt pained, and I communi- 
cated to you, Romulus, your father's viewsf- — 'Away 
with prayers', said I, ' what you want, arms will 
give — get up a festival to Consus' — Consus will tell 
you the rest of the proceedings of that day, when 

* 184. Perhaps we should distinguish between the domus 
Romuli on the Palatium, and the casa Rom. on the Capitolium. 
f 197. Dare mentem, perhaps, * to tell one's mind/ 



ovid's fasti, hi. 220- 81 

you shall be singing of his festival. Cures raged,* 200 
and whomsoever the same resentment affected. 
Then first did father-in-law make war upon his 
sons-in-law. f 

" And already the ravished maidens had for the 
most part the further character of mothers; and 
the warlike proceedings of states so near were 
drawn out in tedious delay. The wives meet to- 
gether in the appointed temple of Juno: amid 
whom my daughter-in-law thus began to speak : — 
1 Wives, ravished together, since we have this com- 
mon character, we can no longer be tamely dutiful : 
the lines stand in battle array : but in favour of 
which side ye should entreat the gods, choose ye : 
the husband holds arms on one side, on the other 
the father. We must debate whether we should 210 
prefer to be husbandless or fatherless. I shall 
advise you to a course at once energetic and du- 
teous :' — She had given her plan ; they comply, and 
loose their hair, and with funeral garb cover their 
sorrowing persons. 

" The lines had been just drawn up, prepared for 
battle and death, the clarion was just ready to give 
signal of the fight : — when the ravished come be- 
tween both their husbands and fathers, and in their 
bosoms bear their babes, those fond pledges. Soon 
as they reached the middle of the plain, with their 
hair all disordered, they fell with bending knee on 
the earth : and the grandchildren with coaxing 220 

* 201. There are some passages where Cures would seem to 
he used as the name of the townsmen, not the town. 

t 202. I cannot come into the opinion that the poet glances 
at the war between Julius Caesar and Pompey, 



82 ovid's fasti, hi. 245. 

cries, as if they understood, stretched out their little 
arms to their grandfathers. Who could, called 
grandfather, then at length seen ; and who scarcely 
was able, had been forced to be able. The warriors 
drop their weapons and their fire ; and putting 
aside their swords, the fathers-in-law offer their 
hands to their sons-in-law, and receive theirs. They 
praise and embrace their daughters ; and on his 
buckler carries the grandfather his grandchild. — 
This was their bucklers' sweeter use. 

Hence the (Ebalian mothers deem it no trivial 
privilege to celebrate the day which was the first, 

230 my calends; or, is it because, daring to throw 
themselves in the way of the naked swords, they 
had terminated by their tears the wars of Mars ?* 
or because Ilia proved by me a mother, with happy 
results, do they formally cultivate the sacred ceremo- 
nies and my day. Why say that the winter, enwrapped 
in ice, now at length gives way, and the snows disap- 
pear, overcome by the sun's warmth ? To the trees 
return their leaves, shorn by the cold : and the 
living bud sprouts from the tender shoot : and the 
rich blade, which has long hid itself, now finds a 

240 hidden path, whereby to raise itself on high. Now 
is the farm field productive : now is the season of 
raising cattle : now does the bird prepare on its 
bough shelter and a home. With reason do the 
Latian mothers cultivate the prolific season, whose 
military service and whose fondest longings are 
comprised in bearing. Add that the Roman soldiery 

* 232. Mars is not clear whether the matronalia commemo- 
rated the convention of the matrons, or the proceedings which 
resulted from it. 



ovid's fasti, hi. 269. 83 

was keeping out guard by night for their king — 
what hill has now the name of Esquilise — there by 
Latin wives a temple to Juno was on this day, if I 
remember, constituted public property. Why delay, 
and burthen your breast with different reasons ? 
see, what you require is plain before your eyes! 
My mother favours wives ; the crowd of mothers 250 
throng me. This so duteous reason particularly 
becomes me." 

Bear flowers to the goddess : this goddess delights 
in flowers : with tender flowrets wreath her head.* 
Say — " You Lucina, have given us light:" say — " You 
favour the prayers of the travailing." If, however, 
any is pregnant, let her pray with her hair all loose, 
that she may gently facilitate her labour. 

Who will now tell me, why the Salii bear the 
heavenly arms of Mars, and chant Mamurius? 
Nymph, who bestow your cares on the grove and 260 
marsh of Diana, inform me ; nymph, wife of Numa, 
at your festival I have arrived. 

Inclosed by the dark wood of Aricia's valley is a 
lake, sacred by ancient respect. Here hides Hip- 
polytus,torn asunder by the madness of his steeds ;f 
wherefore by no steeds that grove is entered. 
Threads hang, filleting the long hedgerows, and 
many a votive painting has been set up to the de- 
serving goddess. Oft times the woman, after gain- 
ing her wishes, having her forehead filleted by a 
chaplet, carries a blazing torch from the city. The 270 

* 254. Lucina was particularly honoured by flowers ; and the 
very pavement of her temple was inlaid in mosaic with flowers. 
t 265. Furiis equorum, that is, maddened horses. 



84 ovid's fasti, in. 294. 

sovereignty* is held by those who are both strong of 
hand and fleet of foot; and under his own prece- 
dent, each afterwards dies. With hidden murmur 
glides a pebbly stream ; thence often shall you 
drink, but in scanty draughts. Egeria, who sup- 
plies the water, is a goddess dear to the Muses. 
She was Numa's consort and adviser. 

In the first place she recommended that the 
citizens, too readily disposed to war, should be 
tamed down by equity and fear of the gods. After 
that laws were assigned, that the stronger may not 
prevail ; and the holy ceremonies were taught, and 

230 were begun to be religiously cultivated. Their savage 
nature is put off, and right prevails over arms, and it 
is regarded as shameful to resort to violence with a 
fellow citizen : and people, a minute before violent 
are just converted on the sight of an altar, and give, 
to the glowing hearth wine and salted flour. 

Behold the father of the gods scatters the flashing 
fires through the clouds, and drains the heavens by 
copious showers : on no other occasion did the 
hurled bolts of fire fall more thickly. The king is 
in dread, and terror takes hold of men's breasts — 
" Be not over terrified : the lightning is to be averted 
by atonement," says she, " and the wrath of angry 

290 Jove is bent. But Picus and Faunus will be able 
to tell the ceremonies of atoning, each a divinity of 
Roman soil. Nor will they tell without force — catch 
them, and apply bonds" — And accordingly she in- 
structs him by what methods they may be caught 
There was a grove at the foot of the Aventine, 

* 271. Regna — this priest, for he was called rex nemorensis. 



ovid's fasti, hi. 321. 85 

dark coloured by the shady holm ; on seeing which 
you might well say a " a divinity dwells here." In 
the centre grass, and covered over with green moss 
there trickled from the rock a constant stream of 
water. From this Faunus and Picus used generally 
to drink alone. Hither comes king Numa, and slays 
to the fountain * a sheep, and distributes bowls full of 300 
fragrant wine ; and lodged himself in a grotto he- 
hides with his party. The gods of the woodland 
come to their habitual spring, and allay their thirsty 
bosoms with abundant wine. The wine is followed 
by sleep : Numa issues from the cold grotto, and 
ties their hands together in tight bonds. When sleep 
has left them, they strive by straining to snap the 
bonds : as they strive the bonds more firmly hold 
them. Then Numa — " Gods of the groves, pardon 
our doings, if ye know that impiety is a stranger to 
our breasts : and point out in what way the light- 310 
ning may be appeased." 

Thus Numa : Faunus thus, shaking his horns, 
speaks : — " You inquire after a difficult matter, and 
one which it is not heaven's will for you to learn 
at our instruction. Our godship has its limits. We 
are gods of the country, and to rule on the high 
hills : Jove has a discretion over his own bolts. 
Him yon will not be able to draw down from hea- 
ven of yourself ; but perhaps you will taking ad- 
vantage of our aid." Faunus had thus spoken : the 
views of Picus correspond. " Take from us, how- 
ever, the bonds," says Picus. " Jupiter shall come 320 
hither, brought down from his topmost height. The 

* 300. That is to the Spirit of the fountain. 



86 ovid's fasti, hi. 344. 

steamy Styx shall be evidence of my engagement.' ' 
Discharged from their ties, what they do, what in- 
cantations they recite, and by what means they 
draw down Jove from his place above, heaven for- 
bids man to know : be allowable things sung 
by us, and whatever may be said by poet's pious 
lips. 

They entice you, Jupiter, from the skies : whence 
the moderns now too celebrate you, and name you 
Elician. It is agreed upon that the tops shook of the 
Aventine wood, and the earth sunk lower, pressed 
330 by the weight of Jove. The king's heart flutters, 
and from his whole body has ebbed the red current, 
and his hair has stood on end all rough. When his 
spirit has returned, — " Assign precise atonements," 
said he, " of the lightning, O you of the high gods 
both king and father : if the hands were pure, 
wherewith we handled your offerings ; this too which 
is required, if a pious tongue entreats." He assents 
to his prayer : but he concealed the truth by secret 
windings, and by ambiguous words alarmed the man .* 

" Cut off a head," said he : to whom the king 
says, " We shall obey : dug up in my garden an 
340 onion shall be cut ofF." 

Jupiter has added "A man's:" — " Topmost 
hairs," says the other. 

He demands " A life :" to whom Numa says 
" Of a fish." 

He smiled, and, " See," says he, " you avert by 
these the omen of my bolts, firm man not to be de- 

* 338. As Ovid relates the dialogue, Jupiter appears to intend 
the sense which Numa puts on his words : but others represent 
Numa as explaining away and averting the intentions of Jupiter. 



ovid's fasti, hi. 371. 87 

terred from my conference. But to you, when to- 
morrow's sun will draw forth his full disk, I shall 
give a sure pledge of sway." 

He said, and with vast thunder is borne over the 
troubled air, and has left alone the adoring Numa. 
Gladsome he returns, and relates the occurrences 
to the citizens : slow and unwilling was credence 
given to his words. u But, at least," says he, " we 
shall be believed, if the result follow my words : see, 350 
hear, every one present, what will be to-morrow — 
When the sun will draw forth his full disk, Jupiter 
will give sure pledges of sway." They retire in doubt, 
and the promise appears tardy, and credit rests on 
the approaching day. 

Mild was the face of earth, and bedewed with the 
hoar frost of morning : — the community attend at 
their monarch's gate. He comes forth, and seats 
himself in- the midst on a maple throne. Around him 3^0 
countless numbers both stand and hold their peace. 
Phoebus had merely risen with his upper edge : their 
anxious minds are in a fever both of hope and fear. 
He stood, and shaded* with snow-white covering he 
raised his hands, already not unfamiliar to the gods ; 
and thus speaks : — " The time is near of the pledged 
favour : confer upon your words the promised ful- 
filment." While he speaks, the sun had just raised 
from the depth his full disk : and from the pole of 
heaven came a heavy crash. Thrice thundered the 
god without a cloud, three flashes did he dart — Be- 370 
lieve what I tell : — I speak of miracles, but facts. 

* 363. The Romans shaded their eyes in religious observances, 
ne facies occurrat hostilis et omina rumpat, as Virgil says. 



88 ovid's fasti, hi. 399. 

The heavens began to open in the midst : the mul- 
titude, as well as their chief, raised their eyes : — be- 
hold, a shield, wheeling gently with a light breeze, 
drops down : the people's shouts ascend to the stars. 
He raises the present from the earth, first offering a 
heifer, which had never submitted to any yoke its 
neck to be pressed. And that he names an ancile, 
because it is pared on all sides, and wherever you 
observe it, every corner is off. 
330 Then reflecting that the chance of sway rests in 
that, he enters on a plan of deep cunning. He orders 
several to be wrought, graved of like shape, that un- 
certainty may arise before the eyes of any one who 
should lie in wait to steal it. Mamurius — whether 
more precise in life or in his skill as a workman it 
were hard for one to say — finished off the task. To 
whom Numa in a spirit of liberality, said, " ask the 
price of your work. If my character for truth be es- 
tablished, you will not ask any in vain." He had 
already given to the Salii — a name derived from 
Saltus, or dancing — both arms and words to be sung 
to certain measures. Then thus Mamurius : — " Let 
fame be my price, and let my name be mentioned 
at the close of the verse." Thereupon the priests 
pay the promised reward to the ancient work, and 
name Mamurius. 

If any woman shall wish to wed, postpone, 
although both parties shall be in haste : a short 
delay has many advantages. Arms bestir the fight : 
fight is unsuited to the wedded : when they shall be 
lodged, it will be a happier omen. On these days 
too the wife of the tufted Dial priest, cinctured 
should have her locks attired in a head dress. 



390 



ovid's fasti, hi. 422. 89 

When the third night shall rise, and roll its fires, 
of the two fishes one shall be sunk. For they are 400 
two, the one near the southern winds, the other 
near the north: each takes its name from the wind. 

When the wife of Tithonus shall have begun with 
cheeks of rose to dew, and shall impel the hours 
of the fifth day : whether he is the Bearward, or 
the slow Carter, he shall be sunk, and elude your 
view. But the Vintager shall not elude. — It is no 
great delay to say whence this constellation too 
derives its cause. 

Bacchus is said on the heights of Ismarus to have 
loved the beardless Ampelos, begotten of the Satyrs 
and a nymph. To him he had given a vine pendent 410 
from an elm's boughs, which still has its name from 
the youth's. While he rashly picks on the branch 
the speckled grape, he falls. Bacchus conveys him 
lost on earth among the constellations. 

When the sixth Phoebus from ocean scales the 
steepy Olympus, and on winged coursers treads the 
air,* whoever attend and pay respect at the chapel 
of hoary Vesta, place on Iliac hearth the vase and 
incense. f To Csesar's countless titles was added 
on this day the honour, which he prized above all, 
of the pontificate. Over the everlasting fire pre- 420 
sides the divinity of the everlasting Csesar. You 
see conjoined the pledges of power, J: — From the 

* 416. Carpere implies to take away one by one, and applies 
here by an allusion to the shortening of the journey at each dis- 
tinct step. 

t 417. I do not know how some can understand vestals in the 
masculine quisquis. Colere penetralia Vestce, for colere Vestam. 

% 422. That is, the fire of Vesta and the priest, on the living 
of both of which Ovid wishes to say that the safety of the 
country rested. 

i 3 



90 OXIDS FASTI. III. 448. 

ashes of ancient Troy the choicest prey, loaded with 
which iEneas was secured from the enemy : a 
priest from iEneas descended touches the kindred 
divinity. — Preserve, O Vesta, his kindred person. 
Well do ye live, fires, which with sacred hand he 
keeps alive. — Live undying, I beseech, both fire 
and chief. 

The nones of March have one mark : that on 
that day they repute that the temple of Vejovis was 
430 consecrated before you reach the Two Groves. 
When Romulus surrounded the grove with a high 
stone- wall — " Hither fly, whoever you are," says 
he, "you shall be inviolate. " From how low an 
origin the Roman erew ! how unenviable was the 
olden multitude ! 

That, however, the strangeness of the name 
should not stand in your way ; learn who this god 
is, or why he is thus named. 

He is young Jove ; regard his youthful looks ; 
then regard his hand ; it holds no thunder bolt. 
The bolt was assumed by Jove after the attempt 
of the giants to possess themselves of heaven : 
440 originally he was unarmed. Ossa was set on 
flames by the new fires, and Pelion, over Ossa, 
and Olympus, stuck in the firm earth. With 
him stands also a goat : nymphs of Crete are 
reported to have given him food ; she furnished 
milk to the infant Jove. Now I am called off to 
the name. Agriculturists entitle corn vegrand, 
which has badly grown, and small things vesca. 
If this be the force of the word,* why should not I 

* 447. Of the prepositive ve. 



ovid's fasti, hi. 473. 91 

assume that the temple of Vejovis is the temple of 
little Jove ? 

And now when the stars shall bespangle blue 
heaven, lift your eyes : you shall see the neck of 
the Gorgon horse. He is held to have sprung, his 450 
mane bedipped with blood, from the pregnant neck 
of the slain Medusa. As he glided over the clouds 
and beneath the stars, the heavens served for earth, 
for legs his wings. And he had just taken in 
fretting jmouth the new bridle, when his buoyant 
hoof pawed out the Aonian spring. At present he 
is in possession of the skies, which before he sought 
on wings, and he twinkles glistening with fifteen 
stars. 

Forthwith on the succeeding night you shall see 
the Gnossian crown. In consequence of the guilti- 460 
ness of Theseus she became a goddess. Already, 
to her advantage, she had obtained Bacchus in 
exchange for her forsworn lord, who had given to 
her ungrateful husband the clew to be retraced. 
Delighting in her married lot, she said, " What 
wept I, silly thing ? It was a good thing for me 
that he was faithless." 

In process of time Bacchus, having his locks 
smoothed into shape, conquers the Indians, and 
returns enriched from the Eastern world. Among 
the captive girls of fine shape, the king's daughter 
was too dear to Bacchus. The fond wife wept, and 
sauntering on the winding shore, with her hair all 
loose, she poured out words to this effect : — 470 

" Lo, a second time, ye billows, hear a like com- 
plaint; lo, a second time, you sand, receive my 
tears. I said, I remember, ' Forsworn and faithless 



92 ovib's fasti, hi. 496. 

Theseus!' he is gone ; Bacchus is under the same 
charges. Now, too, I shall exclaim, " Let no wife trust 
a husband ! Changing the name, my cause is revived. 
O, would to heaven, that, for my part, I had gone 
on whither I had begun to go, and now, at this 
present day, I should be no more ! Why, Bac- 
chus, did you save me, when I should have perished 
on the lonely sands ? I could have done with my 

4gQ griefs at once. Light Bacchus, lighter than your 
leaves, which bind your temples — Bacchus, familiar 
to my tears ; did you presume before my eyes to 
bring my rival, and to unsettle* a union so har- 
monious. Wo is me ! where is your plighted faith? 
where all you were used to swear ? Unhappy me ! 
How often do I utter these complaints ! You 
blamed Theseus, and you used yourself to call him 
deceitful : by your own judgment you yourself sin 
the more shamefully. Let none know this, and let 
me consume with silent anguish, lest I be thought 

490 to have deserved to be so often deceived. I should 
especially wish it to be concealed from Theseus, lest 
he be glad that you are partaker in his own guilt. 
But, I suppose, I was dusky, and a fair com- 
plexioned concubine was preferred to me ! Be that 
colour imputed to my enemy. f Yet what advan- 
tage gain I by this ? She is the more pleasing to 
you by her very defects. What do you ! she black- 
ens your bosom. Bacchus, fulfil your pledge, and 



* 484. Sollicitare properly implies to shake to and fro for the 
purpose of displacing. 

t 494. Hie color, i. e. the reproach of it, of being fusca : 
eveniat, i. e. dicatur ; hostibus, for hosti, as at ii. 790. 



ovid's fasti, hi. 519. 93 

set no woman before the love of a wife, whom even 
constant habit makes to love her husband. The 
horns of a fine shaped bull captivated my mother ; 
your horns me — they praise me ; the other passion 
was disgraceful — let it not injure me that I love : 500 
for, Bacchus, it was no injury to you,* that you 
yourself confessed to me your flame. And you do 
nothing strange in that you inflame me ; in fire you 
are said to have been born, and snatched from fire 
by a father's hand. I am she to whom you were 
wont to promise heaven; ah, me, instead of heaven, 
what favours do I meet !" 

She had ended. Bacchus long heard her words 
as she complained, while he happened to follow after 
her. He anticipates her by a fond embrace, and 
in a course of kisses dries off her tears : and he 
says, " Together let us seek the heights of heaven. 510 
Connected with me in love, you shall assume a 
name connected with me; and now your name, 
altered, shall be Libera. And I shall provide that 
there be with you the memorial of your crown, 
which Vulcan gave to Venus, she to you." As he 
says he does ; and changes the nine jewels into 
burning brilliants. That golden crown now twinkles 
through nine stars. 

When he, who bears on rapid wheels the shining 
day, shall have raised six,f when he shall have 
sunk as many revolutions ; you shall see the second 
Equiria in the grassy plain, which the Tiber closes 

• 501. Nocere, to create a prejudice against one, as at 
verse 191. 

t 517. Sex orbes, six revolutions, or, perhaps, six disks — for 
six times — when he shall have six times raised his disk. 



94 ovid's fasti, hi. 542. 

520 in on the side with its sweeping waters. If, how- 
ever, this should chance to be occupied by the 
flooding wave, let the dusty Coelian receive the 
steeds. 

On the ides is the jovial festival to Anna Perenna, 
not far from your banks, stranger Tiber. The 
commons come and, scattered on every side through 
the green grass, carouse ; and with his own sweet- 
heart feasts each. Some hold out under the bare 
heaven ; a few pitch tents ; by some a leafy bower 
is formed of branches ;* others have set up, for stiff 
pillars, reeds, and laid over them their extended 

530 coats. They get warmed, however, by sun and by 
wine ; and they pray for as many years as they 
quaff cups, and drink to reckoning. There you will 
meet a man to drink off the years of Nestor, and a 
woman to become as old as the Sibyl as far as cups 
can go. There too they sing what they have learned 
at the theatrical exhibitions, and pliantly gesticu- 
late to their own words. And having placed the 
mixing vase, they lead the stiff dance ; and skips, 
arrayed in finery, the miss, with flowing locks. As 
they return they stagger, and are a gazing sight to 
the crowd, and the multitude that meets them calls 

540 them happy souls. I lately came in their way : I 
saw a procession worthy to be described : a drunken 
old woman was dragging after her a drunken old 
man. 

* 528. Sunt quibus facta casa est, idiomatically for quibusdam 
facta est : and we have a corresponding idiom — ' there are some 
to make a bower,' for ' some make a bower.' But the text is 
among the few passages in which the second clause of this form 
is not in the subjunctive mood. 



ovid's fasti, hi. 564. 95 

As to who, however, this goddess is, for there is a 
variance between the reports, no legend is to be 
omitted from my proposed plan. 

The unhappy Dido had been consumed by the 
flames of iEneas ; had been consumed by a funeral 
pyre, which she raised up for her own death :* and 
her ashes had been collected, and there was on a 
marble slab this short form of an inscription, which 
she herself when dying had left : — " iEneas furnished 
both the occasion of her death and the sword : Dido 
fell, herself employing her own hand." 550 

The Numidians forthwith invade the realm with- 
out a defender, and the Moor Iarba possesses him- 
self of the captured palace : and remembering how 
he was rejected, he says, " Yet see, I enjoy Elissa's 
chamber, whom she so often repulsed." The Ty- 
nans fly in every direction, whither various views 
impel each : as when at times bees wander un- 
settled after the loss of their monarch. 

The third harvest had received the corn to be un- 
husked : and the third vintage had entered the 
hollow vats. Anna is expelled her home, and 
weeps as she leaves her sister's walls : yet she pre- 
viously confers on her sister the rites of death. The ^60 
light ashes soak the perfumes mixed with a sister's 
tears, and receive the hairs cut as an offering from 
off her head. And thrice she said "Adieu," thrice 
pressed the ashes raised to her lips, — and her sister 
seemed to be in them. Having gained a ship 
and attendants of her flight, she sails with 

* 546. Perhaps there is made here the same play upon two 
significations of ardere, the literal and metaphoric, as at verse 
503 on those of urere. 



96 ovid's fasti, hi. 592. 

steady breeze, looking back upon those walls, a sis- 
ter's darling structure. 

There is a fruitful isle, Melite, near the barren 
Cosyra, against which the billow dashes of the Liby- 
an sea. For this she makes, relying on the ancient 
friendship of its king. — Battus her friend was king 

570 there, abounding in means. After he learned the 
fortunes of the two sisters, " This land," he says, 
" such as it is, is yours." And yet he had observed to 
the last the duties of hospitality, had he not feared 
the great power of Pygmalion. Twice had the 
sun reviewed his signs ; the third year was in pro- 
gress ; and a new land was to be sought by the 
exiles. " Your brother comes and invades us with 
an armed force," says the king, who abhorred war ; 
" we are not prepared for hostilities — fly and save 
yourself." She flies as ordered, and to wind and 
wave trusts her bark — a brother was more rude than 

580 ocean's roughest plain. 

There is near the fishy stream of the pebbly Cra- 
this a treeless district : the multitude of its inhabi- 
tants name it Camere. For this she sailed : and 
she was not further from it than so far as a sling 
can nine times throw. First fall the sails, and are 
flapped to and fro by the fitful gale. " Cleave 
the waters," says the boatsman, " with your oar- 
age." And while they prepare to furl the sail with 
twisted tackle, a sweeping gust from the south strikes 
on the crooked poop ; and the vessel is borne away 

ran into the wide main, while the pilot vainly resists ; and 
the land which they had seen is fled from their sight. 
The billows bound against its sides, and the seas are 



ovid's fasti, hi, 616. 97 

torn up from the lowest depths, and the hold drinks 
in the foaming waters. Skill yields before the winds ; 
and already the steersman foregoes the use of checks, 
but he too by prayers calls for aid. The Phoenician 
outcast is tossed through the swelling waves, and 
holds up her garment to her moist eyes. Then first 
was Dido pronounced happy by her sister, and who- 
ever has laid her body on any corner of land. The 
poop is struck by a heavy blast on the shore of Lau- 
rentum : and all getting out of her, she is swallowed 
up in the waters, and disappears for ever. 600 

Already had iEneas been gifted with the throne 
and daughter of Latinus ; and had combined to- 
gether the two clans. On the coast which he had 
acquired by marriage, attended only by Achates, 
while with naked foot she treads the solitary way, 
he spies her wandering, and cannot bring himself to 
believe that it is Anna : — " Why should she come 
into Latium's lands ?" while iEneas debates in his 
own mind : "It is Anna/' cries out Achates : at 
the name she raised her eyes.* Whither is she to 
fly ? What is she to do ? What caverns of earth is 
she to seek ? Before her eyes passed her unhappy 
sister's death. The heroic son of Venus has caught q\q 
her thoughts, and he addresses her while she trem- 
bles — -He weeps, however, at the remembrance, 
Elissa, of your death. 

" Anna, by this land I swear, which formerly you 
were used to hear to be given me under happier 
destiny ; and by the gods, who accompanied me, 

* 608. Ad nomen, toward the name, toward the sound, that 
is, toward the person who used the name : or, perhaps, at the 
name, on the sound of her name. 



98 ovid's fasti, hi. 639. 

lately settled in this home ; that they often rebuked 
my delays. And yet I had no apprehensions that 
she would die : that fear I had not : ah me, she 
was resolute beyond all belief. Relate it not ; I 
have seen the wound unbecoming that bosom, as I 

620 lately dared to visit the abodes of Tartarus. But 
you, whether choice has driven you on our coast, or 
heaven, make use of the advantages of my power. 
Much do I gratefully owe to you, every thing to 
Elissa : you shall be dear to me on your own ac- 
count, dear on your sister's." 

She believed him as he thus spoke — for no further 
hope remains — and she laid before him her wander- 
ings. And when she has entered his palace, arrayed 
in Tyrian attire, iEneas begins, the remaining crowd 
is still — " Lavinia, my wife, I have no unlawful 
reasons* to introduce to you this lady : shipwrecked 

630 I lived on her bounty. Sprung from Tyre, she pos- 
sessed a realm on Libya's shore : and I beg that you 
love her as a dear sister." Lavinia makes every pro- 
mise, and in her secret soul suppresses her concealed 
sting, and although chafed disguises her feelings. 
And when she sees many presents to be made pub- 
licly before her eyes, she thinks that many are also 
sent in secret. And yet she has not resolved how 
to act : she hates as one goaded to madness : and 
prepares treachery, and longs to take revenge and 
die. 

It was night : before her sister's couch Dido 
seemed to stand, stained with blood, her hair all 

* 629. Pia causa, non impia, not injurious to your bed : or, 
perhaps, it merely denotes gratitude to Anna. 



99 ovid's fasti, hi. 660. 

neglected, and to say — " Fly, pause not, fly the 640 
mournful house. " After her words a breeze shook 
the mournfully creaking door. She springs forth, 
and quickly flings herself by a low window into the 
fields — terror of itself had made her venturous — 
and whither her fears hurry her, thinly covered with 
uncinctured dress she speeds, as the alarmed deer 
on hearing the wolves. The horned Numicius is be- 
lieved to have snatched her beneath his loving waters, 
and to have concealed her within his marsh. 

For a time the Sidonian maid is sought with loud 
cry from field to field : the traces and marks of her 
feet are seen. They had reached the river's banks : 650 
the impress of her feet was on them : the con- 
scious stream detained its silent course. She seemed 
herself to say — " I am the water nymph of the calm 
Numicius. Concealed in the constant flow, I am 
named Anna Perenna." Thereupon they feast de- 
lighted in the fields they had wandered over, and 
with copious wine they do honour both to themselves 
and the day. 

With some she is the moon, because by months 
she fills up the measure of the annus, or year :* some 
regard her as Themis : others as the Inachian heifer : 
there will be some to name you, Anna, an Atlantid 
nymph, and to say that you gave to Jupiter his first 660 

* 657. ' Some say the moon was named Perenna Anna ab 
implendo anno/ But the opinion is more probable that as the 
sun or year was named annus, so the moon or month was named 
anna, of which Diana, for Diva anna, was only a form : as 
Janus was a form of annus. And indeed a goddess named Jana 
is found in Roman mythology, sometimes confounded with Juno, 
and perhaps the same as Juno Lucina. The form Jana brings 
the name nearer to Io andlnachis. An analysis has been drawn 
between her and the Hindoo Anna Puma. 



100 ovid's fasti, hi. 679. 

660 food.* This fable, too, which I am going to relate, 
has reached our ears ; and it is not at variance with 
probability. 

The old commons, and as yet protected by no tri- 
bunes, has fled, and retires on the summit of the 
Sacer Mons. Already even had the food failed 
them which they had brought with them, and the 
bread suited to the use of man. There was one 
Anna, born at Bovillae in the vicinity of Rome, a 
poor old woman, but of decent industry. She hav- 
ing her grey locks bound up with a little bonnet, 
670 shaped rural cakes with trembling- hand : and in the 
morning was used to disperse them smoking sof 
among the people : to them this supply was wel- 
come. Peace being established in the domestic re- 
lations of the city, they set up a statue to Perenna^ 
for that she had brought them relief when exhausted. 

It now remains for me to tell why the girls sing- 
indelicate songs, for they assemble, and revile in 
formal verses. % 

She had been lately appointed a goddess : Gra- 
divus comes to Anna, and taking her aside, he 
makes to her a proposal to this effect : — " You are 
worshipped in my month : I have shared my time 

* 660. It is no where remarked that a daughter of Atla* nursed 
Jove : nor is it necessary to adopt that sense here. Ovid may- 
imply — * Some say that you were a daughter of Atlas, others 
that you were one of the nymphs who fed Jupiter. 

t 671. I prefer to refer sic to fumantia, smoking so, that is* 
smoking greatly — Both the Latin and English usages, but 
especially the former, being well established; and the Greek 
having the same form. 

% 675. It is ridiculous of Johnson to say that what " reason 
did not dictate, reason cannot explain ; M if it be meant that 
reason can never show us in what folly that originated, whiclx 
was not dictated by reason. 



ovid's fasti, hi. 704. 101 

of the year with you : on your services depend my 
great hopes. I am on fire, consuming with the love, 680 
a warrior, of the warrior goddess : and now this 
many a day I feed the wound. Provide, that we 
deities, like in our tastes, come together : this office 
becomes you, goodnatured dame." He had done : 
she plays on the god with hollow promise, and in all 
the delays of doubt draws on his weak hopes. As he 
presses her repeatedly, she says to him : — " I have 
executed your instructions : she yielded to solici- 
tation : it was with difficulty she gave herself up."* 
The fond god is delighted, and makes ready a cham- 
ber : into it is Anna brought, covering up her face 
like a new bride. Mars going to snatch a kiss, 690 
suddenly sees the face of Anna : now shame seizes 
the baffled god, now rage. The new goddess ridi- 
cules the lover of her own Minerva : and nothing 
ever gave more delight to Venus. Hence old 
humour and indelicate sayings are sung, and she is 
in high glee in that she has practised on the mighty 
god. 

I was on the point of passing over the planting of 
the daggers in the city's chief ; when thus spoke 
Vesta from her pure hearth : — " Decline not to 
record it : he was my priest : me the impious hands 
assailed with their weapons. I myself snatched 700 
the great man away, and left a bare likeness : what 
fell by the sword was butCsesar's phantom. He, on 
the one hand, placed in heaven, waits in the halls of 
Jove, and holds a temple consecrated to him in the 

* 688 Evicta . . .dare manus — Anna employs military meta- 
phors in her conversation with Mars. 

K 3 



102 ovid's fasti, hi, 726, 

great forum : but whoever, attempting a crime 
against religion, the divinity of heaven forbidding y 
had assailed a pontiff's life, they lie in the death 
which they deserved, Be Philippi evidence,* and 
they with whose scattered bones the earth is whitened. 
This was the task of Csesar, this his family duty, this 

710 his first lesson, in just war to revenge his father. 

When the next dawn shall have refreshed the 
tender herbs, the Scorpion shall be visible for his 
first half. The third day after the ides is universally 
observedf in honour of Bacchus. Bacchus, favour 
a poet, while I sing your festival. Nor shall I relate 
of Semele ; to whom if Jupiter would not bring with 
him his lightnings, unarmed he was reckoned no 
god :J nor of the maturization of the mother's bur- 
then in the father's body, that you a babe may be 
born at the due time. I have no time to tell of the 
Sithonians and the Scythian victories, and the con- 

720 quest of your people, Indian bearer of frankincense. 
You too shall be unmentioned, unhappy prey of your 
Theban mother : andyou,Lycurgus, impelled by mad- 
ness against your own knee. Behold, I have a strong 
fancy to tell of the sudden fishes,§ and the Tyrrhene 
wonders : but it is no fit subject for this my verse. 
Of this verse it is fit subject to relate the reasons 

* 707. The plural form in testes is occasioned merely by that 
of Philippi. Philippi et hostes quorum ossibus albet humus, is 
all only a more amplified form for ii qui Philippis cecidere. 

f 713. Lux celeberrima merely implies a day of throng, a day 
when many people were out of their houses through the streets 
and at the temple of Bacchus. 

t 716. Semele was told that her gallant only pretended him- 
self to be Jupiter; and she could not be satisfied that he was 
the great god himself, unless he came with all heaven's lightning. 

$ 723. Subitos pisces for nautas subito factos pisces. 



ovid's fasti, hi. 749. 103 

why a mean old woman invites the citizens to her 
cakes. 

Before you were born altars had no honours, 
Bacchus, and grass was met on their cold hearths. 
They tell that you, after the conquest of Ganges and 
the whole east, set aside first fruits to the great 
Jove. You first made offerings of cinnamon and 730 
frankincense, your capture, and of the roasted car- 
cass of ox, emblem of your triumph. The initial 
offerings take the name of libamina — as well as the 
liba — from that of their institutor, for that a part is 
given from the victim to the holy hearth. The liba, 
or cakes, are made for the god, because he delights 
in sweet flavours ; and they say that honey was dis- 
covered by Bacchus. He was journeying from the 
sandy Hebrus, attended by the Satyrs — my tale has 
no unpleasing humour — and they had just arrived 
at Rhodope, and the flowery Pangseus. The cymbal 
bearing hands of the train rung : behold new tenants 
of air flock, impelled by the tinkling noise : and 740 
wherever the sounds excite the air, bees follow. 
Bacchus collects them as they wander, and encloses 
them in a hollow tree : and has the reward of the 
discovery of honey. 

When the Satyrs and the bald headed old man 
tasted of the flavour, they were looking through the 
whole grove for the yellow honey combs. The old 
man hears the swarm's hum in the corroded elm, he 
spies the wax too, and conceals his discovery.* And 
as the lazy man sat on the back of his bending ass, 

* 748. I doubt if ' conceals' conveys the full sense of dissi- 
mulat : which, perhaps, were better rendered by—' He looks 
into the tree and tells them that, pretends that, there is no 
honey there.' 



104 ovid's fasti, hi. 776. 

750 he guides him to the elm's hollow bark. Over him 
he stood, resting on the branchy stock, and greedily 
seeks the honey hoarded in the trunk. Thousands 
of hornets flock together,* and drive their stings deep 
on his naked crown, and mark his face all over. He 
tumbles headlong, and is struck by the ass's heel : 
and cries aloud upon his party, and entreats assist- 
ance. The Satyrs run together, and smile at their 
parent's swollen face : he limps with stricken knee. 
The god himself smiles likewise, and teaches him to 
smear mud : he complies with the suggestion, and 
760 with mud bedaubs his face. 

The father enjoys honey : and with good right do 
we give to its discoverer white honey poured over 
the warm cake. 

Why a woman stands over them, is not a point of 
deep understanding : — he excites the troops of 
women with enwreathed spear. Why an old woman 
does this, you ask. This period of life is more given 
to wine, and loves the favours of the loaded vine. Why 
is she enveloped in ivy ? Ivy is most agreeable to 
Bacchus. And why this is the case, it will take no 
time to tell. The nymphs of Nysa, when his step- 
mother seeks the babe, have placed this bough be- 
770 fore the cradle. 

It remains to find why the gown of freedom is 
conferred on the boys upon your day, fair Bacchus. 
— Whether in that you yourself always seem a boy 
and young man, and your age is mixed up of both : 
or because you are a Father, fathers commit their 
sons, dear pledges, to the care of your divinity : or 

* 753. Perhaps the best view of the passage is that he was 
attacked by a troop of hornets, who were lying in wait for the 
bees outside the nest, as Virgil describes them often to do. 



ovid's fasti, hi. 805. 105 

because you are Liber, the vestis libera too, or dress of 
freedom, is assumed under your favour, and the way 
of more free living : or because, when the ancients 
more earnestly cultivated theirlands, and the senator 
in the farm of his forefathers followed up the busi- 
ness of agriculture, and it was no imputation on 780 
one's character to have his hands hard ; then the 
countryman was used to come into the city to the 
festivities — but that compliment was paid to the 
gods, not to taste — the institutor of the grape had 
games on his day, which he now has in common 
with the torchbearing goddess ; that, therefore, a 
throng might crowd the youth commencing man, the 
day seemed not unsuitable for conferring the gown. 

Turn hither, O Father, your mild head and peace- 
ful horns, and give my genius full sail. 

People go to the Argei — what they are the proper 790 
chapter shall tell — on this day, if I remember aright, 
and the preceding. 

The star of the kite slopes down toward the 
Lycaonian Bear. This becomes visible on this night. 
What gave heaven to this bird, would you know. 
Saturn had been expelled from his throne by Jove : 
provoked he animates the powerful Titans to war, 
and demands the aid which had been promised to 
him by the Fates. A bull sprung from mother earth, 
a wonderful sight, was a dragon in its hinder parts. 
Him with triple wall the violent Styx, at the sug- 800 
gestion of the three Fates, had shut in gloomy 
groves. Destiny was that he should be able to sub- 
due the eternal gods, who had burned on the flames 
the entrails of the bull. Him Briareus slays with 
axe made of diamond, and was just on the very 



106 ovid's fasti, hi. 823. 

point of giving the entrails to the fire. Jupiter orders 
the birds to snatch them away : the kite brought them 
to him, and arrived by his service among the stars. 
One day comes between, and rites occur to Mi- 

810 nerva, which have their name from the conjunction 
of five days. The first day is free from blood ; and 
it is irreligious to encounter with weapons : the 
reason is that Minerva was born on this day.* Ano- 
ther day and three are celebrated on strowed sand. 
The goddess of war is gratified by the baring of the 
sword. Now boys and delicate girls adore Pallas : 
the male who shall gain the good will of Pallas shall 
be learned ; girls, by pleasing Pallas comb the wool ; 
learn to unload the distafFall so full . She also instructs 
with shuttle to cross the standing warp, and with reed 

820 closes the open work. Her cultivate, you who from 
damaged dress remove the stains; her cultivate, 
whoever you are, who prepare the copper for the 
fleece : and let no one expect to make well the 
sandal ties without P alias's favour, though he were 
more skilful than Tychius : and although compared 
inhandicraft with old Epeus he be superior, he shall 
be unhandy under the displeasure of Pallas . You, too, 
who by Phoebean skill dislodge disease, pay from your 
dues a few to the goddess. Nor you despise her, harshf 
masters, crowd wronged of your income : she draws 

830 in new pupils. And you who wield the graver ; 
and who burn the slab with colours ; and who give 
shape to the breathing stone with skilful hand. She 
is a goddess of a thousand crafts ; at least she is a 

* 812. Probably it was made a point to consecrate her temple 
on what was reputed her birth day : and it is not necessary, with com- 
mentators, to confound the two circumstances. — Vid. vers. 818. 

t 829. Feri — plagosi Orbilii. 



ovid's fasti, hi. 860. 107 

goddess of song. If I deserve, may she stand by, 
partial to my Muse. 

Where the Coelian hill comes down from its 
height to the plain, here where it is not level, but 
the street is nearly level ; you may see the small 
chapel of Capta Minerva, which the goddess began 
to have on her birth-day. . The origin of the name 
is doubtful : we entitle a shrewd genius capital ;* 
she is a goddess of genius. Or is it because she is 840 
said, without mother, to have sprung with her shield 
from the crown of her father's head ? or because she 
came captive to us after the reduction of Falisci ? 
And this very thing old records tell. Or because 
she has a law, which orders the discovery of theft to 
pay the penalties of life ? From whatever conside- 
ration you draw your title, ever, Pallas, hold your 
segis before our imperial house. 

The last of the five days puts us in mind to purify 
the shrill trumpets, and sacrifice to the brave goddess. 850 

Now you may say, with your eyes upraised to the 
sun, " He yesterday cumbered the fleecy sheep of 
Phryxus." The seed-corn parched by artifice of 
guilty stepdame, the blade had raised no ear, as it is 
used. One is sent to the oracular tripod, to bring 
back by exact response what aid the Delphic god 
gives out for the unproductive soil. He corrupted 
too, as well as the seed, reports that the death of 
Helle was required by the response, and of the youth- 
ful Phryxus. Still refusing, the citizens, and the pres- 
sure of circumstances, and Ino had driven the king to 
submit to the horrid orders : and his sister and 860 



* 840. The ancients sometimes seem to regard the head as the 
seat of thought, which they usually refer to the breast. 



108 OVID ? S FASTI. III. 884. 

Phryxus, having their temples filleted with boughs, 
stand together before the altar, and bewail their con- 
joint fate. Their mother sees them, as she happened 
to hang in air, and strikes with hand dismayed her 
naked breast. And into the snake-sprung city, 
with attendant mists, she springs; and rescues 
thence her children : and t. '.at they may take flight, a 
ram all sparkling with gold is given to them. He 
bears them through the wide channel. The female is 
said to have held his horn with feeble hand, when 
870 she occasioned from herself the water's name. The 
brother almost perished with her, while he desires 
to assist her fallen, and far extends his stretching 
hands. He wept, as the partner of the double peril 
were lost, unknowing that she was linked to the 
sea-blue god. After reaching the shore, the ram 
becomes a constellation : but his golden fleece ar- 
rives at the Colchian palace. 

When the approaching dawn shall have sent be- 
fore its face three morning stars, you shall get the 
hours of day equal to those of night.* 

When four times from this the shepherd shall 
have pent the full-fed kids, four times the grass be- 
come hoar with fresh dew, Janus shall be to be 
prayed to, and with him mild Concord, and Public 
Health, and the altar of Peace. 

The moon sways the months : the period too of 
this month is concluded by the occasion of wor- 
shipping the moon on the Aventine hill. 

* 878. I receive tempora diurna for horas diurnaa, rather than 
for diem. Day and night being severally divided into twelve parts, 
or horag, those of the day could not be severally equal to those 
of the night, unless when day and night were themselves equal. 

EXD OF BOOK III. 



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